‘Landon Lucas Maxfield – what in holy fuck are you doing?’ he bellowed, and then turned fully round, because Chastity sat straight up, still topless. ‘Jesus fucking Christ! Can I assume her parents don’t know she’s here?’
I cleared my throat as we grabbed our clothes and put them on, awkwardly, stuck on my twin bed with Dad blocking the door. ‘No, Dad, they don’t.’
‘Do they know she’s with you?’
I looked at her. She shook her head. ‘No, Dad, they don’t.’
‘Get her back to her hotel. Immediately. Goddammit, Landon. Goddammit.’
This was the most I’d heard him cuss at one time in forever. As we passed him, the muscles in his throat clenched and his face was pure fury.
I dropped her at the entrance to the hotel. She’d texted her dad that she’d accidentally turned her phone off. He was waiting just inside the lobby, scowling, when we pulled up.
‘Shit,’ I said.
‘I’ll handle it. He deserves whatever he gets from me. Trust me.’ She turned back and leaned to kiss me. ‘Thanks for making this trip way better than I thought it would be. There’s a broody guy in my lit class with a few piercings. I always thought he was kinda creepy, but I may have to give him a shot now.’ She grinned and hopped out.
LUCAS
Sunday evening, I sent the last worksheet to Jacqueline, along with my now-standard message: New worksheet attached, LM. I wanted to say so much more, but what I most wanted to tell her couldn’t be reduced to words.
Near ten p.m., my cell rang. Jacqueline’s face filled the screen – a pic I’d snapped of her on this sofa. She smirked up at me like she had a secret.
We’d not communicated – aside from the self-defence-class interactions yesterday – in over a week. More importantly, she’d never called me before.
When I answered, she said, ‘I need you.’
I stood, dropping my pen and textbook on the sofa next to Francis, and strode to my bedroom. ‘Where are you?’ I shoved my lace-up boots aside and grabbed the Nocona shitkickers I’d had since I was seventeen – the only footwear I bought new in high school.
‘In my room.’
I shoved my feet into the boots and grabbed my hoodie on the way out the door. ‘Be there in ten minutes.’
Her answer, before disconnecting, was a near whisper. ‘Thank you.’
I got into her dorm as easily as I had last time, took the stairs two at a time and thumped softly on her door. A tremor passed through me. I had no idea what waited on the other side of this door, but whatever she needed me to be, I was ready to be it.
She opened the door, but didn’t push it aside. Her eyes filled with tears when she looked up at me.
‘Jacqueline – what –’
‘He did it again, Lucas – and it’s my fault.’
‘WHAT?’
‘Shhh.’ She shook her head, laid a hand on my arm and scanned the empty hallway. I heard voices from inside her room in the same moment she said softly, ‘Another girl. At a party, last night. She’s here. Erin and I don’t know what to do next.’ She swallowed. ‘She’s a freshman. She’s so upset, and scared, and we didn’t know who else to call. I’m sorry.’
I cupped her face in one hand. ‘Don’t ever apologize for calling me for help. I’ll do whatever you need. Will she talk to me?’
She nodded. ‘I think so. Erin’s told her that you teach the self-defence class and you’re campus police. Little white lies, but she’s just so scared …’
‘I understand.’ I took a calming breath and composed my features. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Mindi.’
Jacqueline’s roommate sat on her bed, one arm tightly surrounding a girl who reminded me of Carlie – pale blonde hair, heart-shaped face – every feature small and delicate except for her huge eyes. But I’d never seen Carlie like this.
‘Hi, Mindi. I’m Lucas.’ I approached her slowly.
‘Y-you don’t look like a p-police officer,’ she stuttered, breaths shaky, speech broken from crying.
Lip ring, longish hair, hoodie – I didn’t look like the most trustworthy guy, and I certainly didn’t look official. I squatted in front of her, but not too close. ‘I’m actually a student. But I have a work-study job with the police department.’
She seemed to accept this.
‘So the thing is, we need to get you to the hospital so you can see a counsellor and a doctor, and see about filing a report.’ Her eyes filled with tears, and I continued. ‘You’ll need to be really brave to do that stuff, but Erin and Jacqueline think you can do it, and so do I.’
‘Absolutely,’ Erin said, holding her hand. ‘And I won’t leave you for a minute.’
Mindi sniffled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. ‘Okay.’ Her voice was high-pitched, like a child.
‘Do you have parents nearby?’ I asked, fighting to unclench my jaw. I could have ground glass between my teeth.
She shook her head. ‘They’re in Pennsylvania. But I can’t call them. I can’t.’ Her hysteria escalated with each word. ‘They’ll be so mad that I was drinking –’
‘You don’t have to call them yet,’ I said. ‘But there’s no way they’ll be angry with you.’ I hoped this was true. If this was Carlie, or Jacqueline … best not to go down that path just now. I took another calming breath. ‘You can talk to the counsellor about how to tell them, okay?’
She nodded, mimicking my deep breath with one of her own, shuddering and gripping Erin’s hand.
‘So we should go to the hospital, then, Lucas?’ Erin asked. ‘We can take my car.’
‘Will you be there?’ Mindi asked me then, her voice hoarse. She must have cried for most of the day. I recalled Jacqueline the night of the Halloween party. The tears in her eyes. Her shaking hands. If I knew where that asshole lived, he’d be dead by the end of the night.
I glanced at Erin and she nodded. ‘If you want,’ I answered. Mindi nodded. Fifteen minutes later, the four of us entered the ER, and I found out how difficult it is to tell.
I fixed my poker expression in place when the details of last night’s party began coming out, before we even left the room. It had been a big deal event – a formal, multi-frat party, with both Buck and Kennedy Moore in attendance – and Jacqueline went. She’s not Greek, so there was no requirement for her to go, no expectations of her presence there.
‘Erin needed me as a buffer with her ex,’ she offered in the backseat on the way, her voice a murmur. I hadn’t asked her why she went.
Once we were alone in the waiting room, I had to know if Buck had approached her. ‘So did he talk to you? Last night?’ I didn’t look at her or tag the question with a name. I was certain she knew who I meant.
‘Yeah. He asked me to dance.’
I sat stock-still and couldn’t look at her. I wasn’t angry with her – I wasn’t. But the thought that she’d put herself that close to him without me there scared the unholy fuck out of me. Finally, I raised my eyes to hers.
‘I said no,’ she said, as if she was at fault for any of this. As if she was placating jealousy, when all I felt was terror and an unconditional, all-encompassing need to protect her.
‘Jacqueline,’ I spoke low, forcing my jaw to release. ‘It’s taking everything I’ve got right now to sit here and wait for law-abiding justice to take care of this, instead of hunting him down myself and beating the fucking shit out of him. I’m not blaming you – or her. Neither of you asked for what he did – there’s no such thing as asking for it. That’s a fucking lie argued by psychopaths and dumbasses. Okay?’
She nodded, saying nothing, and I asked if he accepted her no. My temper was in danger of snapping. I felt it, twisting and stretching, striving to free itself, promising retribution and vengeance I had no right to mete out. I was just this side of containing it.
She told me her ex was with her, and he’d noticed her discomfort. She told him what happened that night. ‘He was angrier than I’ve ever seen him. He took Buck ou
tside and talked to him, told him to stay away from me … which probably made Buck feel weak, and that’s why …’ Her words trailed off.
Jacqueline thought Buck’s resentment over Moore’s dressing-down was why he’d raped Mindi. The sad truth was, that was possible – guys like him are weaklings who act out when they feel powerless – but what Jacqueline couldn’t understand was that his actions were still no one’s fault but his.
‘What did I just say?’ I told her. ‘This is not your fault.’
I wished I could make her believe me.
Unless Francis had learned to make a fist, there was someone at my door at 1:15 in the morning. I glanced through the peephole with a baseball bat in my hand. And then I dropped the bat back into the corner, unlocking and yanking the door open.
‘Jacqueline? Why –?’ I pulled her inside and relocked the door. ‘What’s wrong?’
She stared up at me, her eyes wide and frightened, and my heart nearly quit beating.
‘I wanted to tell you that I just – I miss you,’ she blurted, her voice frantic, almost winded. ‘And maybe that sounds ridiculous – like we barely know each other, but between the emails and texts and … everything else, I felt like we did. Like we do. And I miss – I don’t know how else to say it – I miss both of you.’
The distress on her face was … because she missed me?
She shouldn’t be here. Heller was right on the other side of the yard. I’d promised him to be appropriate with her for the remainder of the semester, but the desire coiling through me was anything but appropriate. It was fire and possession, adoration and need, hunger and thirst and an impossible, unbearable hope. I couldn’t stand the thought of her leaving me for five minutes, let alone forever. I couldn’t have her, but I wanted her so, so badly.
Her bad-boy phase. Her rebound.
I felt it like a physical, internal malfunction – the split second my control snapped. When I no longer cared what I lost outside of this moment, because I couldn’t stand to lose what was right in front of me.
‘Fuck it,’ I said, shoving her to the door and caging her with my arms, prising her mouth open with mine and kissing her as if I could swallow her down and keep her from breaking me.
I pulled away long enough to strip her coat off and haul her to the sofa, to my lap, my hands behind her knees, spreading them into position on either side of my hips and tugging her to fit against me. My left hand pressing her closer, I cradled her beautiful face in my right and kissed her. I wanted to kiss her forever. Make love to her all night. Fuck her until she belonged to me and no one else, without care of consequences – and there were so many consequences to choose from.
I tossed the glasses I wore late at night, uncaring whether they hit the side table or flew across the room. I ripped off my T-shirt and then slowed to remove hers, my hands shaking with a gentleness I had to force. As I slid my hands to her sides, she huddled closer, slipped her arms round my neck and her hands into my hair. I kissed the side of her mouth, her sigh containing the softest little moan, and ducked below her chin to kiss and suck the fragile skin of her lovely throat – the origin of the passionate sounds and garbled words she uttered as her head fell back.
I paid particular attention to the singular freckle that drove me insane – it was like a tiny clue, put there for me to find – the start here on a treasure map. I lapped my tongue across it, and she pitched against me, hands gripping my hair. Fantasies exploded in my mind, too good, too perfect. I wanted her, like this – all of her.
Everything slowed.
I removed her bra, cupping her breasts and teasing them with my fingers – light circular trails round each nipple, thumbs sweeping underneath. She leaned down to kiss me, drawing my tongue into her mouth and sweeping hers across and round it, sliding her hand from my chest to my stomach to the still-tied strings on the front of my pyjama bottoms – thin, soft flannel that couldn’t conceal what my body wanted from her.
But I’d made a promise. I’d made a promise.
My hands slid into her hair at the nape and I pressed my forehead to her shoulder, eyes closed. ‘Tell me to stop,’ I breathed.
‘I don’t want you to stop,’ she whispered, her breath in my ear, temptation incarnate.
For a suspended minute, I let her honeyed words absolve me of the promise I wanted to break, the ethics I was trashing, the heart I was letting her slice open – mine. I rolled us to our sides, unzipped her jeans and slid my fingers down and into her, curling them up and pressing as she gasped my name and gripped my arm like she’d never let go.
I could make her love me. I could be that next man for her …
Ah, I knew better.
‘Jacqueline. Say stop.’ I was begging her, unable to make myself let her go.
‘Don’t stop,’ she repeated, kissing me, and I clawed for solid ground when I wanted nothing more than to sink into her. She opened her mouth, kissing me, hinting at what could be mine if I just let go.
I promised.
Five seconds. I would pull her jeans away and take her right here on the sofa. ‘Say stop, please.’ Three seconds. I would carry her to my room, drop her on my bed, and begin with my mouth on her thigh. ‘Please.’ One second. I would betray the trust of the one person who’d never given up on me.
‘Stop,’ she said.
Thank you, I said. Or wanted to say, before I fell asleep, holding her.
21
Landon
When the sun went down, the temperature cooled and the light disappeared, and spring-break festivities heated up.
The redhead straddling my lap took the last drag off the joint we’d shared, the embers singeing the tips of her index finger and thumb. ‘Ouch!’ Her voice was a mousy squeak. She dropped the last bit into the sand, where it extinguished and disappeared.
‘Hey!’ I frowned, squinting down from my perch on a piece of ragged driftwood and toeing the immediate area like an idiot. The last thing I wanted was to find a possibly still-lit joint with my fucking foot.
‘What? It was all used up anyway.’ Her petulant voice was grating, though I knew damned well there hadn’t been enough left to pull a full hit from it.
I started to retort, but when I glanced up, she was sucking on her injured thumb. The nearly consumed joint dropped out of my mind and my thoughts veered towards other cravings. Pulling her closer, I drew her index finger into my mouth, sucking it gently while she sucked the thumb next to it, eyes lidded, just as high as I was. My jaw rested on the heel of her palm, and I sucked harder when she curled her sharp-nailed fingers into my cheek. I wanted to feel those nails scraping down my back, and I didn’t want to wait or move. A short, loud fight with my dad over another round of failed classes, the long, weirdly hot afternoon and the weed had left me sluggish and lazy, but horny. Opening my lips, I ran my tongue along the V between the finger in my mouth and the thumb in hers. She closed her eyes.
I tugged one thin cup of her bikini top down, liberating one tit. Her eyes flashed open, but she didn’t pull away. If she didn’t mind this, I’d see how willing she was to do me right there, twenty feet from the bonfire and the two dozen or so people drinking, smoking and/or paired off around it. With any luck, she was as lazy and horny as I was.
Releasing her finger with a faint pop, I ducked my head and tugged her nipple into my mouth. She arched into me, gasping, her burnt thumb forgotten. Reaching between us, I moved the crotch of her bikini bottoms aside. She gasped again, her arms sliding round my shoulders like bands, before saying the magic words. ‘Oh, God – yes. Now. Now.’
Hell, yeah. I hadn’t even kissed her yet. Maybe I wouldn’t. A no-kiss fuck – that would be a first, I thought – and I was always looking for firsts. They were getting fewer and further between.
That’s when I heard Amber Thompson scream.
Certain it was her customary attention-seeking shriek, I was determined to ignore her. There was a wobble of panic to it that I hadn’t heard before, but she was likely having a paranoi
d delusion brought on by her dumbass brother passing her a joint. Scrawny fourteen-year-olds shouldn’t smoke weed. They didn’t know how to ration. The same amount that made me ready to screw this girl on my lap, find something to eat, and then fall into a mercifully dreamless sleep could freak them the fuck out.
I’d just ripped open a condom – the only one I had on me – when I heard another scream.
Goddamn Amber’s useless brother. A tall can of beer in one hand and a joint in the other, he was visible in the firelight, stumbling side to side, laughing with two other guys.
The girl on my lap moaned and pressed herself against me. Clutching the condom in one fist and a thick ponytail of soft red hair in the other, I yelled, ‘Hey, Thompson!’
Rick glanced round once before going back to his conversation. ‘Shit, man,’ I said, and then tried again. ‘Thompson, you asswipe!’ This time he only lurched in the opposite direction, to the other side of the six-foot flames.
‘Why are you yelling?’ Redhead whined.
Then I heard Amber a third time – but this time, her voice sounded both scared shitless and further away. Not one goddamned person was paying any attention – except me.
Standing, I slid the warm, pliable girl off my lap and handed her the condom. I pressed her to sit down and her hands went straight for the drawstring of my shorts. In that second, I knew she thought I wanted her to blow me before I screwed her, and she was totally prepared to do it.
Fuck this night.
Gripping her shoulders firmly, I said, ‘Be right back.’ Her lip curled slightly and she blinked, confused. I couldn’t blame her. Even high, I was fully aware that I’d just said the stupidest fucking thing I’d ever uttered.
Amber screamed again, thankfully not sounding any further than she had seconds ago, and I turned and ran towards her voice – away from the bonfire, away from my sure thing for the night, cursing Rick Thompson and my conscience.
Out of the firelight, my compromised eyes adjusted slowly to discern two figures, kissing. Great, I thought. Fucking great. I’d abandoned the hottest girl I’d met in weeks to run down the beach and find out Thompson’s little sister was a screamer while making out. Then the smaller figure jerked away, the larger one lunged and pinned her, and they both went down in the sand. That wasn’t a do me scream – that was a get off me scream.