Wilbur doesn’t like me wearing makeup, anyway. I rest my phone on the sink and quickly wash my face, more of my mascara and foundation coming off on the hand towel than with the splash of water.
I pick the phone up again and hold it ready.
Caylon crashes through the door, hitting so hard the handle bangs against the wall and sticks there, the spring meant to keep it clear bent back at an absurd angle.
He wrenches the phone from my hand and tosses it behind him, sending it skidding across the floor.
“Hey, that’s—”
He tugs the door free and slams it shut, the sound cutting off my words. “What’s wrong with me?”
I’ve never seen him so upset. Usually, he either looks bored or his face is blank, not twisted in fury. His mouth is more used to wearing a sardonic smile than this sneer of rage.
I’d back away but my butt is already pressed against the vanity unit, the hard edge of Formica digging into my flesh.
My hands raise in front of me, the world’s flimsiest line of defence. “There’s nothing wrong… I don’t…”
“Why did you run away from me?”
The confusion in his eyes makes my pulse rate jump. I can’t tell him. Can’t say the real reason. Don’t want him to know what I do, what I’m really like. He already dislikes me.
He didn’t kiss you like that because he dislikes you.
Except that’s not true, is it? Not when he’s glaring like he wants to pulverise me. Until a few weeks ago, every word directed at me has been a cloaked insult.
“N-nothing’s wrong. I just need the—”
“You were taking a fucking selfie. Hardly in desperate need of the bathroom.” He advances a step until his legs touch against mine. There’s barely enough space in this room for one person to move comfortably, let alone two. “Why’d you stop kissing me?”
“I h-had a text from work.”
His hand returns to cup my cheek but there’s nothing tender about the gesture. He holds the side of my face in a firm grip, fingertips sinking into the line of my jaw. “Don’t lie to me.”
I open my mouth, to tell him another fib, another excuse, whatever will get him out and away. Then he takes my shoulder and spins me so we’re still facing off against each other but now my back is pressed hard against the door.
Pressed hard against my only means of escape.
“Why do you keep pushing me away?” There’s a thread of desperation in his voice and I want to tell him the truth, help him understand that this can never work.
Wilbur will punish me if he knows I like another man. That’s bad enough. But if that doesn’t appease his craving for revenge, he’ll destroy Caylon. Strip away all the defences he thinks keep him safe and absolutely destroy him.
Money gives but it can also take away. And Wilbur has more money than God. He won’t stop and no one will stop him. Not until he’s satisfied.
Wilbur will tear him apart just to teach me a lesson.
He threatened me over the incident at the petrol station and that was what…? Him glancing at me. Eyes lingering too long.
If he thought I liked Caylon, genuinely liked him, he wouldn’t stop. He’d just become another way to control me. A new piece in his board game.
“Please let me go,” I say and wince at the shrillness. It’s not a voice to take seriously. I clear my throat, but Caylon’s fingers slide around it, the pressure of his thumb against my windpipe steadily increasing even when I turn my head to the side to escape.
He bends his head, his forehead pressing against the side of mine, my other cheek pressed hard into the cold wood of the door. His breath is soft against my ear and even like this, even with the terror of Wilbur’s threats lingering in my head, desire swirls. In my gasping chest, in my hardening nipples, the pulse between my legs.
“I know you want me,” he whispers and it’s true but so inadequate for the rush of feelings that churn inside me, twisting me until I barely remember how to breathe. “I can feel how much you need me to touch you.”
The hand on my shoulder moves, travels down. I expect him to grab at me, shove my skirt up.
He’s so much larger there won’t be anything I can do if he wants to. My big mouth is usually the best defensive weapon I have but Caylon’s mind is quicker than the other boys I’m used to. It’ll dance around my words, even in a full-frontal attack.
