“Cal, Cal, Cal...God!” Whimpering his name three more times doesn't save me from the fire in his kiss.

I hate what he's able to do to me. I hate that I can't resist. I hate that I'm about to give myself up without knowing if he's really changed, or if he's playing me one more time for his fake marriage con job.

Sex never cares about the tough questions, though.

My pussy tenses, aches, soaks itself in a flood of heat when his tongue enters my mouth. Growling, he sends one hand to the base of my neck, puts it there, and pulls me in. He won't let me go if I tried.

I'm caught in his power as much as my own desire. It's heart, it's soul, it's wanton need. My hand glides down, brushing his rough cock through his pants, and the raging need to feel it deep inside me expands tenfold.

“Come, doll,” he says, pulling his teeth off my bottom lip. I think he means he wants me undone on the spot until he stands up, gesturing to the hall. “We can't do it here. I'm fucking my fiancée for the first time in a proper bed.”

I don't resist as he picks me up, throws me over his shoulder, and carries me to heaven. Even his hand burns its warmth on my skin, perched between the loose separation between my shorts and top.

Why do I want this so bad? Twenty-four hours ago, I thought he'd taken his lust out on another woman, the first time he acted like we were more than actors slaving under a suffocating sexual tension.

But when I think about our time on the yacht, on top of the Space Needle before it all went bad, and again at my parent's house, there isn't room for doubt.

I know perfectly well why I want him, why I'm desperate to believe he's turned over a new leaf.

It's more than that, doll. We both know it. It's a whole fucking mountain of more.

His words from the drive haunt me. They're as true as the lava foaming in my veins. True as my breath fading to short, quick gasps each time his fingers touch me in new places. True as the steady need for more beating its pulse in my heart, and this time, I want to scale the entire mountain.

He pushes his door open, carrying me into his room, and kicks the door shut behind him.

It's as immaculate in his inner sanctum as the rest of his place, a rich and decadent man cave with gold trim around the corners, fancy furniture, and a giant bed draped in ivory blankets, pillows, and sheets. The dim light doesn't hide a few strategically placed mirrors.

For some reason, they make me think of Tina, even though she was never here. I also trust he's told me the truth when he said he backed off before he stuck it in her. But how many others did he bring here before me?

How many women has he taken to screaming fits, watching them surrender to his cock from every angle? I don't know, but I hate them all.

It fills me with an irrational, seething jealousy. I bite him when he throws me down on the bed, and pushes his lips to mine again.

“Ah, fuck! Didn't think you had it in you to want it rough,” he snarls, rubbing the tender middle of his lip with one finger a few times.

“I don't know what I want.” I sigh, letting my legs fall apart, the better to make space for his big, strong body on top of me. He feels so incredible it's easy to forget I haven't had it with anyone before.

“What're you saying?” he says, silencing me with another kiss before I'm able to answer. “What don't you know?”

Shameful heat mingles with my lust. I'm thankful for the darkness because I know every inch of me is probably red by now, flushed with fire, confusion, and most of all, doubt.

Should I tell him the scary truth? What kind of hypocrite would I be if I didn't, after spending the last hour fighting to coax it out of him?

“Doll, answer me,” he says, his face just inches from mine. His blue eyes are inquisitors when they're so bright, so demanding, driven by total lust.

“I've never done this, Cal.” Each word sticks in my mouth like syrup.

“This?” He pauses, needing a moment for it to sink in. When it does, his face softens, and a new panicked intensity fills his eyes. “Oh. Fuck. You're telling me you've never...you're a virgin?”

It sounds like he can't believe it. I think I've made a dreadful mistake, and I'm probably going to melt under him before I get a chance to correct it.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “I should have told you before. Figured I'd better spit it out than disappoint you with –“

“Doll, stop. Listen. If you think I'm disappointed because you've been waiting seven goddamned years for me to break you in...Jesus. You just told me the same cherry I thought about for years, pulled myself off to hundreds of times is still there, ripe for the taking, and it's all mine tonight? In what fucking universe would I ever be disappointed over my biggest wet dream's second coming? Or should I say your first?”

We stop and stare for several seconds. Long enough for my smile to recover. Reaching up, I put my fingers through his hair, open my body, and brace for the storm.

His lips miss my lips the next time they land. He has new targets in mind. They blaze a trail down my throat, sucking hard on tender skin.

Oh, God. Mercy! I'm moaning, writhing, tangling my hips into his.

Cal's fingers push between my thighs, pulling them apart, stroking a rough line of pleasure through my jeans. His nostrils flare and his breathing quickens. It's like my little confession sparks something primal, something I'm able to feel in his energy, the furious passion steaming out his lips and onto my skin.

I've waited forever, haven't I? And so has he.

I shouldn't have teased him putting my teeth into that kiss a few minutes ago. There's now a hundred percent certainty I'm about to have it rough, and there isn't any choice. Not when our sex is dynamite with a seven year fuse.

His hands catch my top and lift me up when he tears it off. He pulls me into his arms, practically shredding my bra strap when he jerks it loose, freeing my tender breasts.

“Seven fucking years, Maddie. That's how long I've waited to get to second base and put my mouth on these tits. Get ready.”

Ready? I don't know what he means until his fingertips clamp around my nipples, seizing the pink pebble at the tip, a prelude to his wandering mouth.

Then comes the kiss, the teeth, the tongue, the love. My clit develops its own rogue ache when he sucks at my breasts. Each stroke of his tongue and needling drift of his teeth pushes me closer to a cliff I've only imagined, nearer to the ecstasy cascading in a dull, hot roaring waterfall.

I'm able to pinch his shirt with my hands, pulling it up, against his head. Somehow, I remember to breathe.

But when his hand climbs between my legs, plucks loose the metallic snap holding my shorts together, and stuffs its conquering fingers against my pussy, I'm done.

I'm so freaking done.

Cal rules me. Owns me. Strokes me to obsession's brink.

He only needs to tease my swollen, dripping labia once before I'm bucking back.

Helplessly, frantically, unconditionally.

I want him inside me.

Wrong, I need him the hell inside me.

His mouth has moved to my other nipple, drawing it in with the heat of his breath, holding it prisoner while his tongue flicks it into rapid submission. I'm surprised my fingernails aren't carving a valley in his head with how hard they're holding on, the last thing grounding me before my virgin cunt folds to the pleasure.

“Doll, fuck yeah, give it up. Just like you've always wanted. Every breathless drop of pleasure I see on your face makes me harder.” He rolls his hips against my thigh. Like I need any reminder.

Like I even need his fingers rubbing me senseless before the fireball building in my womb peaks, turns me to stone, and renders me completely his. That's when he shows me what his marvelous, experienced hands are really able to do.

His thumb never leaves my clit when my pussy tenses. Short, sharp, agonizing circles swarm me again and again, hypnotic and merciless.

His free arm slides under me, lifting me up, pressing my mouth to his as everything goes white.

Cal! I scream his own name into his mouth as release washes over me.

He groans, sucks in my breathless cries, drinks my own pleasure while his fingers hit my pussy again and again. I'm coming for what seems like forever, my brain ballooning with the steady hum of my own heartbeat, drunk and wet and delirious.

“Keep fucking coming. Give everything, doll. Everything we should've had when we were eighteen,” he growls, sometime when I'm halfway through. His fingers quicken between my thighs, and it lifts me up higher, a parting kiss from nirvana before my body gives out, crashing me back to earth.

I'm so limp for the next few minutes I barely notice him tugging off the rest of my clothes. When he lifts me again, I'm naked, and he's lost his shirt somewhere in the storm.

“Wake up, love,” he whispers, underscoring his words with a kiss. “The night is young, and you haven't even felt my tongue on your clit.”

Imagining his face between my legs, strong and hungry, causes my eyes to fully open. Just in time for another sultry kiss, pulling me deeper into his magic, straight to the secret language our bodies use when our words fail us.

“God, yes,” I hiss, running my nails along his naked chest. It's the first time I see his wall of muscle shirtless. It's hard, inked, and so, so strong.

“Like what you see?” he asks, swallowing my moan in his next kiss. “Fuck yeah, you do.”

He answers for me. A small mercy because I'm coming undone. His skin on mine ignites new fire between my legs, hotter and deeper than before.

My pussy tingles when I feel the warmth in his shoulders while his muscles flex. If he wants, I'm sure he could pick me up and hold me mid-air while taking me as hard and deep as he'd like.

The black rose stamped on his hand crawls up his arms in a tangle of vines and thorns, where it blooms again on his shoulder, a whole bouquet in darkness. Their needles drip black ink in thin lines, or maybe it's meant to be blood.

It's impossible not to remember the pain that brought us here even when my skin savors his.

But it doesn't blunt the pleasure. If anything, it brings us closer, and soon my mouth is on his skin, kissing a steady trail down his broad chest, into the valleys of his chiseled abs. I trail to where his belt begins, tasting his earthy masculinity in every kiss, letting the primal craving it feeds inside me run rampant.

I'm tugging on his belt when he grabs my wrist. “Floor, doll. Get over there on your knees if you really want this cock in your mouth.”

He takes me by the hand and guides me to a spot next to the bed. Landing on my knees, I look up, devoured by his deep blue eyes. His gaze never breaks.

Not while his huge hands go to his buckle, or he pushes his trousers down.

Not while he presses my little hand to the massive bulge in his boxers, or when he helps them pull a second later.

Not even while his bare, gorgeous cock springs out, raging steel ready for my lips, or when my cheeks turn so red they glow like sister suns in the grey darkness.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” I whimper, shaking as my fingers close around him. “I've never done this...”

“Don't apologize, baby girl. Just suck. Open your sweet lips and take the head. Take as much as you can, inch by inch. Taste me. Your mouth will do the rest. It's in the blood, doll. Show me what you've wanted since the first day we locked lips at that party all those years ago...”

He's clueless how dangerous his invitation is. He doesn't even know it.

How many times I've imagined the scene before me...Jesus.

I'm a virgin, not a robot. I've had my dirty thoughts, maybe more than any woman who's getting it regularly. Seen myself on my knees with a swollen cock in hand a thousand times, and it was always Cal's. No exceptions. Not once whenever I turned in early, pressed my bullet vibrator against my clit, and let the relentless frustration sweep me away.

Tonight, it's not a fantasy anymore. There's nothing unreachable anymore when I finally break the spell of his sky blue eyes, moisten my lips, and engulf his furious tip.

“Oh. Fuck. Yeah!” He grunts each word quietly. His muscular cock jerks in my mouth, raging against my tongue, catching its pleasure as I learn to take his most intimate flesh on mine.

Closing my eyes, I find a new headspace, a zone where there's just his pleasure and mine.

I suck. I lick. I taste.

I roll my tongue up and down his steaming shaft, drinking the pre-come oozing out of him, focused on the cadence of his breath and harsh whispers. Don't stop. Use me, Cal. Lose yourself in the flesh, the soul, the heart that's always been yours.

“Sweet fuck, you're killing me, Madeline!” he calls my full name when my tongue digs into the soft line around his crown, drawing more sticky sap in reward.

His whole strong body seethes, bulges, threatens to explode. It's incredible how I'm able to massage his entire body just by having my mouth on the best muscle. I watch his blue eyes disappear in his lids. Cal's head rolls on his shoulders, divine face swaying gently, sweat beading on his brow.

Climax approaches, and I want to blow him to the moon and back. My fingers squeeze his thick base, nudging into his heavy balls. I open my mouth as wide as I can and swing low, taking a third of his length every time I push down deeper, all I can manage without doing damage.

Of course, his secret part matches the rest of him. It's huge, smooth, and totally resistant to being tamed.

I think my mouth can do it. His cock sputters more erratically when I dive down on it three more times. I'm bracing for the hot, fierce explosion flooding my mouth when his fingers dig into my hair, ripping my mouth off him.

“Enough,” he grunts, the sexy energy returning to his eyes when I'm able to look up, wiping my mouth with one hand.

Fire returns to my helpless cheeks, too. I look up after a moment, afraid I've disappointed him, trying to find the words to ask. “Sorry. Was it...wrong?”

“Fuck no, you tease. You're a natural cocksucker, and your little mouth's begging to be trained long and hard later. Congratulations, doll.” He smiles, staring into my questioning eyes. I don't understand why he stopped if I wasn't doing bad. “Much as I'd love finishing down your throat, I'd be out of my fucking mind after you told me there's something better.”

Better? My eyes search his in the silence. He just takes me by the hands, pulls me up, and pushes me onto the bed, shoving my thighs apart.

“You're a virgin, doll. You're insane if you think I'm wasting this hard-on anywhere else before I've taken your cherry and stretched your little cunt to fit me like a glove.”

Holy hell. I'm in a whole new round of panic, delight, and sweet anticipation when he drops to the floor.

Cal kisses into my thighs. He throws my legs over his shoulders, holds my legs open with his hands, and soon his breath adds its heat to the steaming mess in my core.

I'm squirming, whimpering, softly calling his name. He keeps my hips from sinking too low, stalls my aching pussy from reaching his face before he's good and ready.

“Cal, please. Please,” I moan a few more times, shaking uncontrollably, losing myself in the strong warmth in his hands before he quits playing.

When his face sinks into my leaking pussy, it's the most brutal kind of bliss.

Fast, abrupt, and unbearably hot. Inescapable.

My clit steams against his kisses, soft wet lips fused to his tongue. He digs them apart with his chin, raking his stubble over tender flesh again and again. I'm ready to come before his tongue even dips into my quivering pink.

Cal knows what he's doing. God, does he ever freaking know.

My cunt throbs for release. His tongue smothers my clit and begins to make licks ten times softer than his fingers, and just as irresistible.

Throwing my hands above my head, I reach helplessly for the pillows, and see us in the huge mirror attached to the ceiling. Apparently, sex reflections aren't just an extra thrill for emotionally scarred rich men.

I'm just in time to see my own eyes roll back into my head as my entire body seizes. “Cal, Cal, Jesus!”

Pleasure rips through me in a wave cascading straight from his tongue through my soaked flesh. It screams, it resonates, it carries me halfway to heaven and drops me through the clouds. Hot white bliss soaks my brain, turning my clit into a steady, pulsing beacon for everything his mouth lashes into me.

I'm coming like I didn't know I could.

Ecstasy writes poetry on the fabric of my skin, shattering every shield I thought I had. His pleasure finds my heart, dips his enigma into it, and makes me more vulnerable, more confused, more addicted than ever.

When I'm able to open my eyes, it's his I see. Cal hovers, completely freed from his clothes and gloriously naked, his rigid cock pressed snug against the flesh it's eager to claim.

“You come so goddamned perfect, Maddie. Can't wait to see how you let go when I'm balls deep.” He sweeps my loose hair aside, working his mouth down to mine for another kiss. It's slower, but so much hotter than before, like the wait has lifted his internal temperature several degrees. “How many times did you think about this over the years? Be honest, doll.”

I'm too stunned to answer. I shake my head, hoping he's so horny he just forgets the question.

Whatever simple sex is supposed to be, it isn't this, is it?

Taking over my body isn't supposed to include hitting me with these questions aimed at my heart.

Oh, but he isn't letting up. The way his hips rock into mine, enough to make me moan, but not risk sinking in, tells me what kind of game this is.

“Cal, please. I want you,” I whisper, the blood in my veins sprouting needles. They scratch, they tempt, they paint me all kinds of shameful red and lustful pink.

“Answer me, damn it,” he snarls. Fisting my hair, he gives it a warning tug, turning my face to his, the better for his lips to ravage with another kiss. “I want to know, Maddie, how many times? How many times did you get yourself off imagining how hard I'd fuck you? How many times did you wish it'd been different, that you'd given yourself to me that night at Chelle's place because you were afraid you'd missed your chance to have this torturing your clit?”

Grunting, he pushes his full length against me. Coated in my wetness, his cock glides, evil friction pulling the answer out of me because torturing is right. And I'll do anything to end it.

“How many times, Maddie?” he whispers again, harsher than before, stroking his length against me again and again. I'm going to explode.

“All the time, ass! I must have dreamed it hundreds of times, lived it in my head over and over. Every time I had the gall and a little privacy to break out my vibrator or use my fingers. I pleasured myself to you, came to something I thought would never happen...” I despise the confession falling out as much as I love the controlling tease of his body on mine. My eyes are full of hate, frustration. Cal just eats it up, delighted to hear the awful truth, how bad I wanted him. “There, are you happy?”

He reaches behind him to something poised on the bed. I watch him lean back, rip the condom foil with his teeth, and then glide the oversized dark rubber sheath over his manhood with the world's slowest stroke.

When he finds his place between my legs again, I push my hand against his, trying to hold his cock away, even though my pussy is on fire. “You never answered me,” I say, clenching my teeth.

“Don't fucking need to. After what's happened the last week, think we'd both agree talk is cheap. There's more than words to get a point across. Doll, let me show you why everything you've said makes me the happiest swinging dick this side of heaven.”

My spine practically tilts into a crescent the first time he pushes into me, pressing my legs to his shoulders, thrusting to the hilt.

There's a rough tearing sensation as he takes what's left of my virginity. And then fire, fire, so much fire.

It burns in the goosebumps rising on my skin. Blazes in the sweat racing out my pores. Even shimmers, fierce and hot and endless as the stars out his huge window, when I hear him grunt with satisfaction because I'm so full of him.

“So tight, so wet, and so fucking mine,” Cal growls, bringing his teeth into my ankle. His cock shifts deeper on the second thrust, stretching me open.

Moaning, I try to move my hips to meet his, desperate to turn my first time discomfort into the pleasure rising behind his thrusts.

“Yes, yes, yes,” I whimper, a slow staccato burst, each cry shriller than the last.

They're like sirens to his predator instincts. He bites my leg again before he tears his mouth off me, pinches my legs tighter to his shoulders, and brings it harder than I ever imagined.

The bed becomes an earthquake, and it ripples through me. I'm a shaking, screaming, ecstasy teased mess at the end of his next dozen thrusts. Chewing my lip and clenching the sheets for dear life is all I have, my one and only brace for this storm he's fucking into me with each passing second.

His free hand reaches down, finds my clit, and flicks maniacal circles. They're hypnotic, dizzying, and cruel in their intensity.

But it's the kind of cruelty that's mysterious, hinting at a higher pleasure, calling me back to it again and again.

So much like everything else involving this scary, powerful, soul stealing man.

“Going to break you, doll. Come for me. Come until you pull the fuck apart.” His eyes are insane when he doubles his pace, thrusting into me harder, using the leverage on his knees to drive into me. His balls beat a frenzied rhythm on my ass, and it's their tempo making his commands impossible to ignore. Invincible to resistance.

My obedient body seizes a second later. I'm sweating through the next few seconds, keenly aware of what's coming.

The heatwave starts in my lower belly next to my loins before it surges, immersing my brain in the essential, confounding, and savage Cal Randolph. His cock drives deeper, harder, pushing me over the edge, off the face of the earth.

“Oh, Cal. Oh, holy, holy –“

Shit! Coming!

My mind finds words my upbringing always suppressed to keep itself from coming apart. It splinters, lost in a million lewd pieces, sex sparks showering through me like currents lit by raw, animal release.

“Fuck yes, doll. Give it. Every pulse. Every whimper. Love how you curl your everything when you come. I love it fucking all. Give me everything.”

Oh, and I do.

My pussy convulses, flooding rampant pleasure through my body. My O reaches every nerve, deepening by the second, turning every muscle to stone before they melt to clay.

Cal barely gives me time to catch my breath. I'm loosening my grip on the sheets, letting the blood flow to my fingers, when he picks me up and flips me over.

“Ass up, Maddie,” he whispers, nipping at my neck.

I should be all kinds of exhausted, ready to crash out face first. But his love bite fills me with a new energy, a manic need to serve him until he's found his release.

Pushing my face into the sheets, I stifle a whiny moan when he mounts me from behind. His fingers seize my ass, the same frantic tension I'm using to clutch the sheets.

He thrusts faster and harder than before. Bucking, grunting, relentless in his need to fuck.

His strokes lift me high and drop me on my knees.

He pushes with a force, a fury, and a passion I never imagined in my wettest, most secret fantasies.

This is no joke. No dream. It's the new reality, and it's deep inside me, beating its balls against my clit.

I can't hold on. Another O builds, making its presence known when the fire comes. My ears tune to his heavy breathing, his feral curses, his pleasure quickening in our race together.

“Breathe, breathe, breathe, Maddie, and don't fucking stop!” He says, fisting my hair, lifting my head so I'm forced to see the mirror over his leather headboard.

I see him behind me, owning my body in every stroke, my face crinkling with delight. My breasts swing like pendulums with every thrust, drunk on the same giddy numbness overwhelming every nerve.

His eyes...God. They're bright blue portals to the basest lust. His muscles bow, flex, bulging and dominating. When he comes, it's going to be with his entire soul on fire, and for the first time since we started, I'm afraid.

But there's no time for fear taking over. His cock plunges into me faster, harder, and his fist jerks my neck prone, forcing my hips to tilt back into his endless pounding.

“Cal!” I call his name, eyelids fluttering shut, so close to pleasure's wave drowning me again. I don't want to face it alone.

“One more time, baby girl. Come for me again. One more, and I'll spill every damned drop.”

He's either read my mind, or he's been controlling it the whole time.

My pussy pulses, pinching him at the base of his cock. Muscles I didn't know I had tense like springs, releasing their force with a violent relief when they've hit their limit.

I'm coming again.

Coming while his cock pistons, while he growls his imminent release, while every hard, tattooed inch of him owns me in the worst ways.

Actually, the best and worst.

“Fuck!” he screams it. Then his cock stiffens, swells, plunges to my depths, and finds its molten peace.

I lose the last thread of control I'm holding onto when I feel him jerk. Every magnificent inch he has throbs inside me, adding a vicious heat to my pussy's walls. My cunt sucks him harder, desperate to break the condom, wringing every twitch from his balls.

We're a two way conduit joined for one purpose. Orgasm fuses us in sweet release, and I swear our pulse and breathing match before it's over.

One heartbeat. One rhythm. Two souls.

It seems like forever before he pulls out, sliding off the bed to tie off the condom and throw it away. Gnawing my lip, I wonder what he'd feel like bare. I shudder. It's frightening to fathom the limitless pleasure this man can bring, and we've barely broken the surface.

“Goddamn, I needed that, doll,” he says, flopping back onto the bed, taking me in his arms.

“Seven years is a long time to sit on that grenade.” I place my hands on his chest for leverage, looking up with mischief hanging on my lips. “I'm glad I never settled for anyone else. No one except you would've shaken my world, much less rocked it.”

“Same. Knowing my cock's the only one you've ever taken gives me fewer ungrateful assholes to hunt.” He's smirking.

For the first time in awhile, it's adorable instead of infuriating. I slap my hand against his huge chest and he laughs. “Stop. We're fake married, remember? Until it's official, there might be more suitors. A girl's entitled to shop.”

“Then they're entitled to meet my black rose,” he says, his smile wilting, flexing his fist.

He can't be serious? Right?

What kind of psycho have I given my virginity to? And why does his crazy jealousy still excite me?

“Seriously, doll, I meant everything I said. Screw pretend. What we have here,” he says, running his finger over the sunburst rose ring on my hand, “it's real. It's serious. And we've got a wedding to plan over the next few weeks. I want us good and legal, and I'm not waiting.”

He's right. It's happening so fast it makes my vision blur. I need to ground myself, and tell him it'll be okay.

When I press my lips to his, they're warmer. Firmer. Different.

It must be my body's surrender to this man, or else the sudden forever approaching in my heart.

We do it two more times before I'm so exhausted I can't hold my eyes open. The last time, when he's on top of me, pressing his forehead into mine while his breath steams against my lips, I hear him whisper words I never expect.

“Love your body, doll. All of it. Love your heat, your cries, every time you lose it for me. Fuck, Maddie, I love you so much.”

It's all he says before we go over the edge to heaven together. His cock pulses hard, twining our bodies once more, more inseparable with every O.

Before, our glue was tragedy. Tonight, it's become love, desire, and some otherworldly peace I can't quite pin down.

As bad as I want to accept it, enjoy it, and step into the future instead of bemoaning the past, there's a dark doubt. It keeps me hostage from the heaven in his bed when I finally fall asleep.

I dream about things best forgotten like they were yesterday.

* * *

I can't believe I forgot my German book. Mrs. Anders smiles when I sheepishly confess, and tells me to hurry up and bring it back. I don't even need a pass to go to my locker. She trusts me because it's never happened before.

I'm still embarrassed. Especially when Cal shoots me his patented smirk several desks over, as if he knows perfectly well where my head has been for the last few weeks since he walked me home from Chelle's party.

Okay, so we kissed.

I was weak, and I let him in. I may have enjoyed it.

Doesn't mean it changes anything. He hasn't made more than his usual token efforts to get my attention, teasing me with his jock posse when he walks past, or snickering at my little mistakes when I misplace a German word or two.

This wouldn't keep happening if I could just forget his constant, humiliating gaze.

I'm still kicking myself when I pick up my book, slam my locker shut, and get the scare of my life.

“What the fuck you doing out of class, Rags? It's the middle of the day.” Scourge looks like he wants me dead.

His new nickname brings me close, a play on ragdoll, something he started after hearing doll stick.

Reason number one thousand and one I want to strangle Calvin: giving this loathsome idiot ideas.

“J-just getting my book and going back to class. Sorry,” I sputter helplessly, noticing his locker hanging open for the first time.

He's hanging onto a backpack bursting at the seams, perched between his legs. Whatever gives it the weight looks heavy and illegal. I don't even want to know.

“Wait!” he snarls, pulling at my collar so hard it spins me around when I grab my stuff and try to walk away.

“Did you come out here to spy so you could fucking tattle? Thought maybe you'd bring something nice and juicy back to the kid you're blowing so he'd get my ass suspended, maybe fucking expelled?” He has me against the wall, breathing his fowl breath on me. It's sour, angry, and it makes my head squirm for fresh air. “Answer me, bitch. Hell of a coincidence if you just magically decided to dig through your shit now, while I'm around. I don't fucking buy it.”

I don't say anything. I don't know what to say between his fish-eyed stare murdering me where I stand, and pondering my bad luck.

“Fuck it,” he growls, pinning me against the wall by the shoulder, while his free hand goes to the zipper on his bag. “If you're gonna squeal, I want you to see what you're dealing with.”

Don't look, don't look, don't –

“Look, damn you!” he whispers, pulling the flap on his bag aside, doing a quick check down both sides of the hall to make sure nobody else is around.

We're so alone, and I'm completely screwed.

He won't let me go. When I try to turn my eyes away, he grabs the back of my head and pushes my eyes to the floor, ignoring my stifled sobs.

Holding my breath, I open my eyes, and stare down at the black bag. There's something white inside. A lot of white stuff, wrapped up in plastic, like neat piles of bricks. It's an obvious drug pile I've never seen anywhere outside those crazy suspense shows dad glues himself to.

But this isn't TV. It's real.

My heart catches in my throat, pounding until it hurts. Scourge snorts and chuckles, releasing me, slowly closing the zipper. He doesn't need to keep his hand on me. I stand by helplessly as he rams the overflowing bag into his locker, and slams the door shut.

“Yeah, that's what I thought, Rags. Gift from my Uncle Match and his buddies. We're gonna make some sick profits real soon off the assholes in town who want something stronger than their crusty joints and cancer sticks. Now you know my secret. Heavy fucking bitch to hold onto, right?” He pins me down with his eyes. “Go the fuck to class. Pretend you never saw it. Because I swear to that shiny little cross you wear around your neck, you are fucking fucked if you breathe one word about this to anyone. You, Rags. Not me, not my friends, not even the asshole hankering to put his dick down your pretty little throat. I'll take you out with Cal watching if you flip, and I'll do it with a goddamned smile on my face.”

It's a struggle not to scream when he reaches up, finds the chain around my neck, and rips it off with a force that would leave whiplash if it were any thicker.

“I'll keep this safe for a few days while I make sure you don't fuck me over. Fair?”

I nod. I'm completely numb. It hurts like he kicked me in the stomach to lose the only thing my grandmother left me, but I just keep bobbing my head. I nod until I'm dizzy.

“Good. Now, fucking scram, and maybe one day you'll get this back.”

I turn around and speed to class, wiping the tears on my sleeve, hoping no one will notice. Mrs. Anders is in the middle of her lesson. She doesn't take much notice when I plop back into my seat, frantically paging through my book to the right lesson.

I make doubly sure I don't look back at Cal the entire time, which is probably my biggest mistake.

He knows there's something wrong. If only he'd never gotten his hopes up after that kiss, and decided it was an invitation to insert himself deeper into my life.

* * *

An hour later, I skip the bus to walk home. It's the best way to make sure I don't have a nervous breakdown in front of Chelle or the other girls.

Kat will be at her guitar lessons tonight, and dad is working overtime to pay down my tuition. That bodes well for some much needed alone time to screw my head back.

I have to think straight, clear, and fast. I'll need the night to decide whether I'll keep mum about Scourge's drugs, or beg my parents to call the police.

I'm mulling both miserable options when I hear the last words I need to know the universe has no mercy. “Doll, wait up!”

Cal charges me from behind, tugs on my shoulder, and shoves me against his broad chest when I refuse to slow down. So much for holding in those tears.

“What's wrong, Maddie? Talk to me!” It doesn't slow once his eyes are on me, wide and blue and searching as the sky. They lift me higher, sending me into the lonely ether when his brow creases, and he utters the words I fear most. “What the fuck did he do to you?”

“Cal, let go!” Twisting, I sever his grip, nearly dislocating my shoulder in the process. He staggers backwards, stunned by my energy, my need to get away before I say too much. I can't let him trigger the landmine that will wreck both of us. “Leave me alone. Please. I need to go home!”

My dire tone gets the message through. He doesn't follow.

I'm halfway down the block before I glance behind me. He's never looked fiercer in his gold lacrosse jersey and black shorts. His eyes dig into me from several yards away, clenched fists hanging at his sides.

That ice blue gaze is so cold, so sharp, so haunting. I can't handle it for more than a second.

Next time I turn, I run. My legs pump, filling my lungs with fire. I don't slow down until I'm at the last major street before my block.

That's when the chunky black Mercedes stops short of making my bad day my last. When I see who's inside, I wish I'd stepped right in front of it.

“Watch where you're going, you little bimbo!” An older man with graying hair screams from the driver's window, shaking his fist, louder than the blaring horn his other hand activates.

Next to him, there's the most evil face I've ever seen. “Give her a break, dad. I know her. She's had a shitty day.”

Scourge winks at me. His words do nothing to slow his father's rancor. Alex Palkovich Senior flips me the bird as the light turns green and he hits the accelerator, roaring away as fast as his taxpayer paid luxury wheels can carry him.

I should wish the councilman knew a fraction of what his screwed up son is into. But what I'd really like, more than anything else today, is some freaking peace and quiet.

My legs carry me home in a blinding, sad fury. I cross several more streets without looking, not caring if the next unlucky car I encounter plows into me. Apparently, that would be too easy because I'm able to get home without more interruptions.

And even when I'm safely in my room, face buried in my pillow, sobbing my pathetic life out, I still hear the silent words Cal only said with those eyes.

His gaze was proof he's about to do something stupid. It tells me, without doubt, it's only getting worse tomorrow, no matter what I do.

I won't let this go, doll.

If you won't tell me, then I'll figure it out myself. No one fucks you into a fit of tears and walks away.