He nuzzles into my ear, teeth scraping my lobe for one teasing second. “For the next month, you’re mine. Anything, anytime I want, and you can’t refuse.”
I jerk away, the hushed voice sending a shockwave to my core. But I’m already crushed against the wall, no escape. My blush deepens because this attractive, wealthy, utterly unhinged boy wants me so badly…
Chelsea.
Acid burns up the back of my throat.
He already has a girl, the most popular one in school. That’s what the delay with my quote has all been about.
Damien isn’t flirting.
He and Chelsea are making me the butt of another joke.
The possibilities crowd my head. Secret cameras. Intimate photos. Notifications pinging on every student’s phone.
These two must think I’m the most gullible fool on the planet, and the irony of where Damien staged his approach deserves a bitter round of applause all its own.
I grip my bag strap harder, arm across my chest, and the spray can bumps my ribs.
“Let me get this straight.” My voice is strangled. “You break my glasses, threaten to hurt me if I report you like you fuckingdeserve, sneak into the only place I can talk freely, and you think—what? That in gratitude for you replacing what you broke, I’ll become yoursex slave?”
“No.”
His firm answer isn’t denial, it’s a correction.
Damien’s thumb grazes my lower lip, pressing on the centre until my mouth falls open, tasting salt off his rough skin. Pressure increases against my legs, his knee wedging them apart. An echo of Monday, in class, when he crowded me at my desk, unable to escape the press of his thigh against mine.
Just his thigh. Two layers of fabric separating our skin. A sensation I’ve experienced more times than I can count, but this one occasion got stuck in my head.
“You’re going to become my sex slave because I think you’ll enjoy every second.”
I fight back tears of humiliation. “You believe I want you after you threatened to hurt me?”
Knuckles graze my jaw and I tense, every muscle on high alert. His touch is light, almost reverent, and it sends a current straight down my spine.
Then his fingers clamp around my throat, my pulse jumping against his skin. Holding me while the heel of his palm hardens on my windpipe, and every sense screams danger.
And just as abruptly, he whips his hand away, glancing down.
He brushes my nipple, peaking beneath my blouse while he wears a satisfied smirk, and how I wish that smugness would fade back into a blur.
“Yeah, I do,” he whispers, his lips almost brushing mine. “Maybe even because of that.”
I’m a mess. Resenting my body’s betrayal, the amusement in his gruff voice, the way his torso presses closer and my traitorous back arches to meet him.
You might as well hand victory to Chelsea.
And Damien’s not my nemesis but knowing he’s in partnership with her squeezes my ribs, trapping sobs in my tightening throat until I’m losing control… and if I don’t take it back immediately, I might never regain it at all.
In defiance, I reach into my bag, my trembling fingers turning steady as they close around the cold metal canister inside.
CHAPTER SIX
DAMIEN
The delicate shadingof Ophelia’s skin flushes the tiniest bit pinker. Her tongue flicks across her lips in a quick, nervous gesture that stirs my deeper instincts.
For days, her strange eyes have been in my head a dozen times an hour, each vision deepening my obsession. My fists clench, visions of what I have planned for her tumbling through my head.
