Ruin Me (4 page)

***

“So, Piper…” My mother gathers a bit of pasta with her fork, twirling it around. “What do you have planned for your trip?”

Piper glances up from the barely touched food on her plate, her little eyes scanning around at each of us as we stare at her.

“Yeah,
Piper
,” I say. “Tell us all about it.” I shovel some noodles between my teeth.

A fake smile strikes her lips. “Oh, I can’t wait,” she says. “We’ll land in Berlin first, then from there we’ll take trains to Munich, then Rome, and finally Paris.”

“That’s a lot of ground to cover in so few days,” Philip says.

“We won’t have a whole lot of time to waste anywhere,” Piper says, nodding her head, “but I’m looking forward to seeing the view from the trains. I think it’ll be really cool.”

“Sounds
delightful
,” I mutter.

She narrows her eyes at me for a brief moment to hide the shadow of amusement passing through. “It’ll be peaceful and quiet. A nice change of pace before school starts.”

I stare back at her and bounce a passive smile. “I don’t know,” I say. “It doesn’t sound all that safe to me.”

“Safe?” she parrots back.

I sit up straighter in my seat. “Two young girls wandering around foreign countries all by themselves?” I shoot at cautious look at her father. “I mean, I’ve seen a lot of movies that start out like that and they don’t end well.”

“We’ll be
fine.
”

“Kai may be right. I’ve been thinking about that as well,” Philip says. “Maybe your stepmother or I should go with you. An extra pair of eyes won’t hurt.”

“No—” There’s a desperation in her voice, but Piper masks it quickly with a smile. “Really. We’ll be
fine
. Mandy has been to Germany plenty of times before. She knows her way around — and we’ll be on crowded trains the entire time.”

I lay on the paranoia. “It still sounds
really
risky to me. I mean, you don’t know who could be sitting next to you…” She leers at me with a death stare, one that sends a cold chill down through my toes. I can’t stop the smile from cracking across my face.

“Philip,” my mother begins. She reaches out a hand and brushes her fingers over his. “I’m sure the girls will be perfectly fine. You went on a similar trip in your youth as well, didn’t you?”

Philip sighs. “Yes, Ava,” he answers, “but the world was such a different place back then…”

“That’s right,” Piper grins with opportunity. “You didn’t have cell phones with GPS permanently enabled at all times so your wonderful and trusting father could check in on you and track where you were whenever he wanted to.”

He lowers his eyes and glances at her over the rims of his bifocals. “You’ll have it turned on the entire time?” he asks.

“Every moment.”

I flex my jaw as she looks up at him with her little puppy dog eyes. What a
bitch
.

“Okay,” Philip gives in. “But I want a complete itinerary — on
paper
— with every train car you’re assigned to and every hotel you’re staying at. I want to be able to glance at it and know exactly where you are the entire time. Kapeesh?”

Piper beams. “It’s already on your desk, Daddy.”

“Good girl.”

Her eyes slowly move in my direction. They land on mine across the table and I hear her voice ringing out in my head.

Don’t fuck with me.

I sit back and take a sip of my drink. I chug it down in disappointment while her eyes linger on me. I thought for sure appealing to Philip’s fatherly paranoia would work, but then my fucking mother had to go and ruin it.

Thanks a lot, Mom. Piper leaves for the airport tomorrow morning. Now, what am I supposed to do?

“I can’t believe how grown up the two of you are,” my mother coos. “It seems like just yesterday the two of you were playing with each other in the back garden.”

I scoff silently. Mothers always have very different memories of these things. I remember playing with Piper as kids, all right. I remember how she used to sit there and read, merely glancing up at me with hatred for three hours while you and her mother drank mimosas on the lawn. “Oh, how time flies,” I say. I wink at Piper across the table and she glances away.

“And now you’re going to USC, Kai,” she continues, looking at me with pride in her eyes. “Just like I did.”

“And my little Piper’s going to Harvard.” Philip reaches out and lays a hand on Piper’s shoulder. I fight the urge to roll my eyes. I guess Piper’s knack for constantly one-upping everyone around her is genetic.

“Well, it wasn’t a contest or anything…” Piper mutters with a half smile. Oh, Pipes. Don’t play the modest shrew now.

“
Everything
is a contest, Piper,” Philip says, pointing his fork at her. “There’s no such thing as a participation trophy in the real world.”

Oh, great.
Here comes another one of Headmaster Lynch’s classic motivational speeches. I’m sure they’re plenty motivating to Piper, but to me? The B-average jock? Might as well staple a sign to my forehead that reads
“fuck you, kid.”
And my mother? Bless her heart. She reaches across the table and pats my hand as if to say,
“You’re still perfect to me, son.”

“Excuse me,” I say. “I’m meeting up with Shawn tonight. Dinner was great, Mom. Thanks.”

“Have fun, sweetie,” she says. “Don’t stay out too late.”

“We won’t.” I take my empty plate and walk across the dining room into the kitchen to lay it in the sink.

Piper’s voice carries through the house as she continues talking about her trip. My feet turn numb, stalling me in place near the sink. I lean against the kitchen counter and listen in closely as the sound travels between my ears. It’s intoxicating, really. Like a pleasant siren’s song passing through ocean waves.

But then lightning strikes and the storm arrives to fuck you and your ship up.

I push off the counter and wander across the kitchen. Her dark blue eyes meet mine for a brief second as I pass across the open doorway on my way into the hallway.

She laughs at something her father says and I fight the urge to punch a wall.

Piper is going to Europe tomorrow and she doesn’t come back until the day she leaves for Harvard. I’m screwed. There’s no way she’d fuck me tonight either, not after the completely obvious way I just tried to derail her entire trip right in front of her. The bet’s over.

I’ve lost.

I reach into my pocket and palm my phone. Shawn’s going to be a very happy man after he reads this text message.

Congratulations, asshole—

I start typing it out, but I quickly delete it and pause in front of Philip’s office door.

I twist the door open, being extra careful not to make any noise as I do it. The hinge squeaks from old age, but I hear my mother’s laughter in the other room and push it open the rest of the way before she’s gone silent again. A small lamp illuminates the room and I step through the shadows, quickly darting for his desk.

Here it is — Just sitting right on top in one of those plastic see-through folders like a fucking book report or something. Piper’s itinerary. Every hotel, every train, every map. A chiseled-in-stone blueprint of her exact whereabouts for the next week.

I raise an eyebrow and send a new message to Shawn.

Got any plans this week?

Chapter 5

Piper

“Ich liebe deine muschi…”

I giggle at his deep voice as he rocks me harder against the small hotel bed. I had worried the language barrier would make finding sexual partners a difficult task, but I guess my
come fuck me
stare is universal currency.

I caught this fellow, a young student named Lukas, taking photos of pretty girls near the Oberbaum Bridge. He looked at me with nervous eyes when I called him out on it, stealing words from Mandy’s vast German vocabulary she picked up from her Austrian nanny. His expression quickly turned amused when I mispronounced over half of them and we spent the next twenty minutes bantering back and forth until he finally took the hint.

Lukas digs his thick nails into my thighs as he rails me, igniting the pain in my skin and sending a flourish of pleasure towards my aching slit. I cry out and wrap my legs tighter around him to send his thick cock deeper inside of me. He grunts with each thrust and leans over me to hold my body in place. I moan at his domination of me as my passions double back for a second orgasm.

Oh, Berlin… I love it here already.

My inner muscles quiver with delight as he nibbles and scratches at my skin. I fight to catch my breath as my limbs turn to jelly. I never expected this shy man I stumbled upon to be so rough, but I’m certainly not complaining.

He grabs me and flips me over onto my belly. I moan loudly when he quickly enters me again from behind. My fingers keep an iron grip on the old and tattered bedspread. His cock pushes in deeper, forcing me over the edge one more time before he yanks me up by my hair to steal a kiss from my lips.

I whimper and purr as he takes his time on me. His thick arms wrap around my body as he scratches and grabs at me. His fingers spider up my arm and lay to rest around my neck. I shake at his strong grip, the fear of it magnifying the desire inside. He squeezes my throat, then loosens his grip only to flex his fingers even tighter the next time. I moan louder, urging him on and calling his name until I can barely breathe. He takes me faster and faster until we both climax against each other one last time.

Lukas releases me and I topple to the mattress below. I roll over onto my back and take deep, steady breaths to calm my light head. My brain throbs from the lack of oxygen, making every nerve a little more sensitive than usual. I love every second of it.

“Es tut mir leid, wenn ich dich verletzt,”
he whispers, a smile curling his lips.

I laugh at him and run my fingers through my tangled hair. I make note of his words, but I probably won’t remember them by the time I get back together with Mandy anyway.

***

Mandy glances at the clock when I return to our hotel room. “Eight hours.”

“What?” I ask as I close the door. She’s already dressed in jeans and a thick sweater with her bags stacked on the bed, ready to go. Her hair is turban wrapped on top of her head, still wet from a wash.

“Just letting you know how long we’ve been in Germany, just in case you’re keeping track of how long it takes you to mount a foreigner in each country we drop into,” she jokes.

I grin. “I’ll be sure to write all about it in my diary,” I tell her.

“Dear diary…”
she begins as she smears a bit of cherry balm along her lips.
“I don’t remember his name, but I’ve named his big dick Gunter!”

I lean in as I pass by her bed. “His name was
Lukas
,” I say.

“Oh, so we’re making note of their names now?” she laughs.

“I think I’m going to remember this one for
a long time
, actually.” I slide my jacket off and drape it across my pillow. “At least, until I meet the next one in Munich. Is there some hot water left?”

“Plenty,” she answers. “Don’t take too long, our train is in an hour.”

“I’ll be quick.”

“You always are.”

“Ha, ha.” I close the bathroom door behind me with a smile on my face, eager to wash off what’s left of Lukas’ sweat and bodily fluids. My cheeks appear pink in the light, that perfect shade of rouge I always strive for, but can never obtain through make-up alone. I lick my lips. I’m still throbbing inside and out. It feels too damn good not to savor.

I strip naked and let the hot shower water cleanse me from head to toe. Being here, in a foreign land, surrounded by people that don’t know me (nor do they give a flying fuck about who I am) — it’s a sweet awakening. For the first time in my life, I feel completely naked. I don’t have to keep my secrets. I don’t have to whisper quietly into Mandy’s ear and hope no one else can hear me. I don’t have to be anybody except who I want to be.