Fierce (22 page)

“Did I hurt you?” he suddenly whispers.

It takes me a while to answer. Not because
he hurt me, but because I have no idea how I’m supposed to feel after something
like this. I feel full, swollen, raw. It’s a little tingly, but that doesn’t
bother me. I’m just delighted. I’m happy. I’m happy because of him.

“No,” I say, flashing a smile.

His lips curve up, too, and he presses his
mouth against my temple, leaving a sweet, gentle kiss.

As he retreats, his hand snakes up my
belly, curling around my waist and drawing me closer.

When I look at him, I feel so damn happy.
There’s nothing else in the world that has ever made me feel this way.

I think I’m in love.

“I … I …” I stammer. I want to say it, but
I’m afraid. What will he say if I do? Will he reject me? I don’t want this to
end.

But I feel I need to say this. Hunter has
given me the courage to follow my heart. My heart wants to speak up.

“I love you.”

There. I said it. It’s out now.

I couldn’t hold it back any longer. It’s
the truth. He deserves to know. I want to let him feel it.

For a moment he just stares at me, his eyes
half-mast, observing me. It’s as if the words take time to register in his
brain. I’m patiently awaiting his answer to my confession, wriggling my toes
against his.

And then his fingers tighten around my
waist.

“You’re mine now,” he whispers.

And with those words, he leans forward and presses
his lips firmly on mine.

Love
is a Difficult Thing

Rays of sunlight brighten the room. My eyes
flutter open, sticky from the salt. I snatch my glasses off the nightstand so I
can actually see something. When his beautiful face is the first thing I see,
I’m filled with joy.

I’m also still a bit shaken by what
happened last night. I can’t believe I actually had sex. It was amazing, and
everything went by in a rush. It’s like I was on cloud nine or something.

And then it hits me: I’m no longer a
virgin.

I wriggle my way under his arm, feeling
suddenly very jittery. I don’t feel different. Nothing’s changed. The only
thing that’s different is my feelings for him. They’re much more defined, clear
as day. I love him, and I want to be with him for as long as I can.

He groans when I accidently wake him with
my squirming. It’s such a small bed, so it was bound to happen.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

He slowly opens his eyes, which hide behind
thick, dark lashes. He yawns, and my eyes follow the movement of his strong
jaw. With his fingers he scrunches up the blanket, making grumbling noises. I
smile at the sight of him. I can’t stop looking at him.

I’m proud. Not because I have him, but
because he is so much more than he tells himself he is. He cares so much for
everyone around him, loves them with all his heart, so much that he’d go
through hell for them. He calls himself bad for me, but he’s made me feel
stronger, vigilant, alive. I admire his devotion, adore his flaws, and the
scars that mark his past and make him who he is. And I revel in his inner and
outer beauty. The only thing he’s been is good for me.

“Hey beautiful,” he says softly, his voice
still croaky.

I giggle and bump my thigh against his.
“Wake up.”

He grunts, and the sound stirs the butterflies
in my belly. “Why?”

“Shower.”

His hand slithers across my waist, and he
pulls me closer to him, making humming noises. His groin presses against my
side, and I can clearly feel his morning wood prodding my leg.

“Hmmm …” he groans.

I chuckle. “C’mon. I wanna shower. I feel
dirty.”

“I like that …” he says.

I laugh, and shove him away. One of his
eyebrows arches, and he throws the blanket off him. “I’ll take you up on that
offer.”

A manly, loud roar comes from his mouth as
he raises his arms. His muscles tighten and look strained as he stretches them
to their limit. I gulp just looking at his taut, ripped body. We’re both still
completely naked, and I don’t feel insecure about my body anymore.

I get up from the bed and grab some fresh
panties. Hunter growls.

I turn my head, and see him eyeing my bare
butt. A flush spreads across my cheeks, and I hurry to grab my bathrobe.

“Aw …” he says as I close the robe and
fetch a bottle of shower gel.

I roll my eyes at him. “Do you always
blatantly stare at naked chicks?”

“No. Just you,” he muses, and he jumps out
of bed like a coiled spring. Damn, he has energy.

“And I’m not saying no to getting under the
shower with you,” he adds, wrapping a towel around his package.

I swallow away the lump in my throat. “When
I said ‘shower,’ I didn’t actually mean together.”

Stepping forward, he gazes at me, and one
eyebrow slowly creeps up on his face. A smile curves his lips. “But you do want
to.”

“What? I … uh.”

He leans forward, his lips hovering close
to mine. I can almost feel the sparks zing between us. “Don’t deny it.”

He grabs my hand, opens the door and pulls
me through the hallway to the bathroom, locking us both inside.

It seems empty, but I look around just in
case. We’re in the girls’ bathroom, and I don’t want anyone to notice a guy is
in here. Especially not
this
guy. Hunter Bane, the chick magnet of
college.

Yes, I’m easily jealous. No, I don’t want
to share him.

He reaches for my glasses and carefully
takes them off, placing them on the sink. “Too bad you can’t shower with them.
I love how you think you can hide your ogling behind them.”

I flush, heat spreading across my cheeks.

Suddenly, he pulls my robe, forcing me to
come closer. He rips it open, drapes it off my shoulders, and lets it drop to
the floor. A sly grin appears on his face as he licks his lips, gleefully
gazing at me as if he’s wondering what I’m going to do about it.

Oh, I’m going to do something about it.

My hands reach for his towel, and with one
jerk I tear it away from his hips. He chuckles, and then twirls me around in
his arms, pecking me on the shoulder. We walk forward, still in each other’s
clutches, and I turn on the shower as he pushes us inside.

The hot water streaming down my body opens
up my pores. It also opens up my eyes. Rivulets of water stream down his
pectorals, making me gulp.

He grabs my shower gel and squirts some on
his hand. Then he starts lathering me with it. He runs his callused hands over
my arms, along my waist, across my belly and up along my breasts. He cups the
swell of my breasts and smears the soap all over me. I don’t have to look down
to know he’s enjoying it; I can feel him prodding my thigh.

I have trouble not gaping down at his cock.
I’m inching toward touching it. Some little devil on my shoulder is telling me
to just go for it, but I’m embarrassed that I even have these thoughts.

I’d normally never be so lusty and horny,
but Hunter has awakened a side of me I didn’t realize was in me. It’s kind of
scary, but freeing at the same time.

He grins when he sees my blush, and I
smile.

He’s not skipping an inch of skin with the
soap before washing his hands under the shower and then grabbing the head and
spraying the bubbles off me. Not the hot water, but knowing he’s caressing me
softly is what makes me feel so warm. It’s like he wants to take care of me.

Our connection has become infinitely more
powerful after our intimate night. I still can’t get it out of my head. What I
said to him last night keeps replaying in my mind. I told him I loved him, and
I meant it.

I want to do this every day. I want to
shower with him, let him lather me up. I want to sleep in the same bed every
night. I want to press my body to his, wrap my arms around him, and never let
go.

I want to be with him forever.

I know it’s too soon to know, I just feel
like it. I’m not ashamed of admitting that to myself. I love the way he is. The
beauty that lies in his imperfection. The way he makes me feel: warm and loved.
That he’s made me a different person.

We both need each other. I want him to tell
me, though. I want him to make me think I’m way more than I thought I was. But
I don’t know why he would need me.

I want to feel special. I want to be the
only one who can make him feel the way I do about him. The only one who can
give him what he needs. I love him. I want him to love me, too.

I just didn’t hear him say it. He only said
I was his.

But does that mean the same?

I bite my lip, and Hunter’s brow arches up.
His lips curl up into a coy smile. “What are you thinking about?”

I stop biting and look at him, feeling
caught in the act. “Nothing?”

He laughs. “I can tell when you’re lying.
You always blush.”

Of course, I can’t stop my cheeks from
reddening now.

“C’mon, tell me,” he says, placing his
hands on my hips and pulling me closer.

“Do you …. Do you love me?” I say,
hesitantly.

It’s quiet after that. Hunter just stares
at me. The silence is deafening.

It says enough.

Averting my eyes, my heart drops into my
shoes.

“I …” he stammers.

“No. Don’t,” I say. “I don’t want you to
feel forced to say it. Then it’s not real.”

Hunter puts a finger on my lips. “I don’t
feel forced. I’m just baffled. But if I say it now, you’ll think it is.”

“Why are you baffled? It’s not weird, is
it?” I ask, swallowing away the lump in my throat. Oh God. Maybe I shouldn’t
have said anything. This is embarrassing.

“No, of course not.” He pulls me closer and
puts his lips on my forehead. “I just can’t imagine someone could.”

I frown, confused. “But you’re Hunter Bane.
Everybody …”

“Everybody what? Loves me? No. They only
love my attitude, my looks, or what I offer. They don’t know me. They don’t
like my personality, they don’t want to know about my problems with school. And
they definitely don’t know anything about my family or my past.”

“And I do?”

He gazes down into my eyes with a look that
could stop hearts. “A bit. At least, I hope you do enjoy my company.”

I chortle. “Of course I like you. I meant
about the ‘past’ thing.”

“Right, about that … I still need to tell
you something …” he clears his throat, and I suddenly feel anxious. “Remember
those guys at the restaurant?”

“I don’t want to remember them, but I have
no choice, really.”

“It’s been bugging me for some time now. I
didn’t want to tell you this, because I was afraid you’d hate me for it. I just
can’t live with it anymore.”

“What?” I say, chewing on my lip.

“I was there for a reason.”

I knew it couldn’t have been a coincidence
he was there to save me.

“I was supposed to do an exchange with
them,” he says with a sigh.

My eyes widen. “You what?”

“They’re customers of Alpha Psi. I was
waiting for them to finish their meal, and I didn’t notice them leaving until I
heard your scream.”

I’m shaking.

“Please don’t be mad,” he says, grabbing my
arms. “I didn’t know they were going to do that. I would never have let them
leave the restaurant if I had. And I refused to have anything to do with them
after it happened.”

“I can’t believe it …” I stammer.

“Yeah, me neither. They’re probably pissed
as hell after what happened. It wouldn’t surprise me if they got their revenge
sometime soon. Especially when the boss finds out what I did to them.”

Hunter lifts his finger and brushes a
strand of wet hair from my face, gently caressing my cheek.

“I will never let anyone hurt you,” he
says. “Even if it means getting my ass whooped.”

I chuckle at his comment.

“So, you’re not mad?” he says.

“Maybe a little …” I say with a devilish
grin and a squint. “I mean, you should have told me sooner. But I’m glad you
did the right thing.”

Half a smile forms on his lips, and then he
pulls me closer so he can kiss me on the forehead. “Good.”

Suddenly a gut-wrenching scream fills the
halls.

Hunter’s eyes skid through the bathroom.
I’m on high alert. We’re both looking at the door. My eyes widen.

Oh God.

I recognize that scream.

Evie.

Unforeseen
Casualty

Every bone in my body screams. I need to
get to her. Now.

I almost want to run out naked, but Hunter
holds me steady. “Put something on first,” he says.

“It’s Evie!” I yell.

“I know. I heard it too.” He turns off the
shower, while I’m already grabbing the towels.

“I have to go to her!” I throw the towel to
Hunter and start rubbing my own skin fairly hard, trying to get dry as fast as
possible. “I’ve never heard her scream like that. Something’s wrong.”

I barely have my robe on before I run out
the door looking for her. “Evie?” I shout her name, but she doesn’t respond. I
look around the hallway and the notice the faint sound of her whimpers. She’s
in the bathroom.

My breath hitches as I run down the
hallway. Rushing to her, I pull open the door and call her name again. She
stops crying for a second.

“Autumn?”

When I hear her voice, I let out a sigh of
relief. At least I know she can still talk. “What happened?”

Squatting, I check each of the stalls until
I find her feet, and then lean up against the door. She doesn’t say anything.
She’s completely quiet, and it makes me scared.

“Evie? Open the door,” I say.

It’s silent for a few seconds, but then I
hear her fiddle the door and I scramble back when she opens it. Tears are
rolling down her cheeks. Toilet paper is crushed between her fingers, and her
face is red all over. She looks miserable.

“What’s wrong?” I say, coming closer.

She blows her nose and throws the paper in
the toilet. Something really, really bad has happened.

She almost never cries.

“C’mon, you can tell me,” I say softly.

Trembling, she lifts her head, her eyes
watery and horrified. It looks like she’s seen a ghost. Or something worse.

I’m not even sure I still want to know.

But I have to be there for her. She looks
terrible, and I know there’s something wrong. I have to brace myself for it.

I put my hands on her knees and caress the
caps, trying to soothe her.

“I-It’s S-Scarlet …” she says, catching her
breath. She’s having trouble breathing because of all the crying.

“S-she’s …. Oh God.” Her voice sounds
croaky.

“What?” I say, grabbing her hands.

“I have to puke.”

She turns around, pulls the seat up and
throws up right away. I turn to grab a few pieces of toilet paper so she can
wipe her face. She sighs, barely able to keep breathing. I seriously start to
wonder what happened.

“Please tell me what’s wrong, I’m worried
about you,” I say, patting her back to calm her down.

“S-Scarlet. H-her room. D-dead.”

My heart stops. My breath is caught in my
throat. All light disappears in front of my eyes. I can’t speak.

I just stammer. “W-what? What are you
saying? Dead?”

Her eyes scream out in agony as she sinks
to the floor, bawling her eyes out above the toilet she just puked in.

“G-go look,” she stutters.

I turn my head toward the door. Hunter’s standing
there in his sweatpants. His eyes are big and his face is darkened. He heard it
too.

I swallow back the bile rising up in my
throat. It can’t be true.

No …

I run for the door, Hunter going in front
of me. We both rush to Scarlet’s room. As we step inside, my blood turns
frigid.

Scarlet’s lying in her bed. Her arms hang
down over the bed. On the floor is a syringe. Empty. Below her face is a puddle
of vomit mixed with foam still partially inside her mouth. Her eyes are dark,
hollow. Life has left her long ago.

The true horror of what happened sinks in,
and I collapse underneath my own weight. Sinking down to the floor, I hold onto
the doorframe to feel grounded. It feels as though the world has been taken
away from under my feet, and I’m falling into an endless pit.

“No …” Hunter mutters, walking closer.

He turns her body gently, inspecting her
eyes, her face, her limbs. He’s careful, but I still can’t believe he actually
has the courage to touch her.

Her. The body. The corpse.

She’s no longer Scarlet.

It’s just an empty shell. A nothingness.

I swallow away the rising bile, and try not
to think about it, but seeing her body there, lifeless, is almost too much.
It’s shocking. I can’t believe this is really happening. She’s dead.

And oh God, Evie found her.

I crawl back up.

“Where are you going?” Hunter asks me,
raising his eyebrow like he’s still too busy with the examination.

“I need to be there for Evie,” I say, and I
rush out the door, not realizing she’s already halfway across the hall. “What
are you doing?” I say, confused, as I see her hold the wall as support while
walking forward.

She doesn’t answer, but falls into my arms
instead. Crying, she breaks apart. I shush her and caress her back. “It’s going
to be okay.”

“No,” she whimpers.

She holds on so tight I can barely breathe.
That, and I really feel like I need to throw up, too.

“Yes, it will. You have to keep it
together.”

“She’s dead!” she screams. “I found her,
dammit. I wasn’t sleeping here last night … I only came back this morning. I
didn’t even know she was d …” Her breath gets caught in her throat. I pat her
back to make her feel better, but of course I already know it won’t do any
good.

I guess I’ll just ignore the fact that she
just spilled that she slept at some other place last night. This is not the
time and place to be asking about her relationships.

“I’m sorry …” I say, trying to concentrate
on her sadness.

I don’t know what else to tell her. There’s
nothing I can say that will make this all right. Scarlet’s dead. She’s never
coming back.

I don’t know how I feel about it. I don’t
feel like I need to cry. All I am is shocked and horrified. That’s it.

But seeing Evie like this reminds me that
she had a much stronger bond with Scarlet than I previously thought. It seems
as though she really lost a friend. And I feel sorry for not knowing, for not
being there in her place to find out about this so she wouldn’t have had to
witness it on her own.

God. How she must have felt seeing Scarlet
in that state. By herself. With nobody to lean on.

“This isn’t good …” Hunter mumbles, picking
up the syringe from the floor carefully so as not to touch the needle.

I’m still calming Evie down, so it’s hard
to look at what he’s doing.

“Fuck …” he says.

“What?” I say.

“Drugs.” He holds up the syringe for me to
see, but I’m too far away to see what it means. I don’t have to; I believe him
if he says it’s so.

“She OD’ed?”

He lets out a huge breath. “Yes and no.”

“Which is it? It can’t be both,” I say.

His jaw tightens, and he purses his lips.
Hunter just stares at me, then flicks his eyes at Evie, and then back at me. He
doesn’t even need to speak to let me know what he’s thinking. He wants to tell
me something, but he doesn’t want her to hear.

“Evie …” I mutter.

She looks up, her eyes swollen and red. I
don’t want to hurt her. She shouldn’t have to watch this. She shouldn’t have
been here at all. It’s all my fault. If I’d been a good friend, she would be
sleeping in her own bed in our room, and she never would have witnessed this.

“You should go back to our room.”

“B-but …”

I squeeze her shoulder. “It’s better if
you’re somewhere you feel safe. Make yourself a cup of tea and crawl under the
blanket.”

She just gazes at me, her lips pouty. She
sniffs.

I smile at her to make her feel at ease.
“It’s okay. Hunter and I will take care of it.”

“W-we can’t leave her like t-this,” she
stammers, and she briefly glances at Hunter.

“We’ve got it covered,” I say.

“You should rest,” Hunter says.

After a few seconds of staring her down,
she gives in. Nodding, she turns around and walks to our room, still holding
onto the wall. This has devastated her.

Dammit.

Hunter covers Scarlet’s body with a
blanket, careful not to leave any traces of him touching the evidence, except
the syringe, which he places on the cabinet beside her bed.

I check to see if Evie’s gone into the room
before turning around. Holding my arms, I brace myself for the news he’s about
to share.

“That wasn’t just an OD,” he says.

I just wait for the next blow to come.

“She couldn’t have gotten this drug from
us. We never,
never
, sell this.”

“What is it?”

“Heroin.”

Holy shit. Heroin? That drug that turns
people’s lives completely upside down, scarring them for life?

“Maybe one of your guys made a mistake,” I
say.

“They’re not my guys and they didn’t make a
mistake,” he hisses.

“But she wouldn’t do that, would she?”

“No. She only used the drugs as a means to
escape. It was a one- or two-time thing. Nothing big. She wasn’t an addict, and
trust me, I know it when I see one; she wasn’t one of them.”

My breath is getting more ragged by the
second. “Was she experimenting or something?”

“I don’t know …” he says.

“Maybe it was an accident. Maybe she took
too much,” I whisper.

“No, absolutely not. She’d never take too
much. She told me she had too much to live for, I remember her telling me at
the party when I asked her if everything was okay. I needed to check if she
wasn’t taking them to … you know …”

Suicide. He doesn’t want to say the word,
but I know exactly what he’s thinking.

“She knew the risks perfectly well,” he
continues. “She wouldn’t do that.”

I sigh, leaning against the doorframe. I
still can’t believe she’s really dead. It’s so unreal.

“Something’s wrong. This isn’t even our
product.” He points at the syringe. “We only deal in powders and pills.”

He checks her body, probably to see if he
can find anything else, a mark of the needle or something, I don’t know. I have
no clue why he’s doing it. As if it’s going to change anything about the
situation. Scarlet is dead. It was drugs. They’re dealers.

The cops will inevitably get involved. And
Hunter might go to jail.

No, not might. The question is when.

“She has bruises all over her body,” he
says, and I’m ripped away from my thoughts.

“I thought you said she OD’ed? Bruises
don’t come with that, do they?”

“They can, but this isn’t drug related.
Look at the marks,” he says, pointing at her neck.

“No thanks, I’d rather stay here if you
don’t mind.”

“Nobody would shoot heroin straight into
their neck. Plus, these are really weird marks. They go all the way around her
neck, centering on her esophagus. And they’re on her wrists, too,” he says,
holding up her arm like a doll.

God, I feel sick to my stomach.

“Stop messing with her, please,” I say,
holding my hand in front of my mouth. “You’re making me want to throw up.”

“Sorry,” he says. “But that’s the least of
my worries right now. This should be a concern to everyone.”

“Why?”

“Because this wasn’t accidental. She was
drugged with a dose far beyond normal.”

“Are you saying …” I can’t speak. My vocal
cords are clamped shut.

“Someone forced his hand on her. It killed
her.”

I shake my head. No. I can’t believe this.
This can’t be true.

Someone couldn’t have murdered her.