Songs for this chapter are:
Demons- Imagine Dragons
All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye- John Mayer
Edge of Desire- John Mayer
Assassin- John Mayer (it's a John day for me haha)
"We're going to go into town." Tessa tells me as I reach the door.
"Oh, okay." I say, looking at Tessa's hand in her boyfriend's. She flushes and pulls away as her mum gives me the most fake smile I've ever seen as I walk out of the room.
"I really don't like that guy." I hear the douche bag say from inside the room.
"Me either." Tessa quietly responds.
She doesn't like me? Fine.
I don't give a shit, I don't like her either.
When I get into my car, my phone vibrates in my cup holder. I reach for it and answer when I see Molly's name across the screen.
As I walk into Molly's apartment without knocking, her roommate glares at me, smoke pouring from her mouth. "She's in her room," her black lined eyes roll and she takes another hit of her cigarette.
Molly's laying in her bed, her head propped up on a mound of pillows and her bare legs are spread wide open. She gestures for me to join her on the bed, her pink hair is wild, tied on top of her head in a nest.
"Well, well, well, look who it is," she taunts me when I sit next to her on her bed. She lifts her skirt up further, exposing her black panties. She runs her hands down her thighs, circling them around her panty line.
"You called me," I remind her. Her room is small, the walls are covered in posters from fashion magazines. Mostly black and white pictures that she's clipped and taped to the lightl blue walls. Her bed is positioned against the wall furthest from the door and her room has no windows. I would hate to be trapped in a room with no windows, no wonder she's never here.
"And you came," she chirps, reciting the line in a sarcastic and proud voice.
"Don't get too excited, I was bored and you made yourself available." Shrugging my shoulders, I look over at her. Her brows are furrowed and she's pretending to be offended.
"This is true." She laughs and I shake my head at her shameless behavior. Molly's hands are cold when she wraps her hand around my arm and pulls me closer to her.
When Molly's lips press to my neck, I try not to picture Tessa's full lips. Molly climbs down my body, her hands reach for the button on my jeans. She pops them open quickly and drags my pants and boxers down. I lift up, helping her while trying to convince myself that I want this. This is fun. This is what people like me do for fun. People like me and Molly, fucked up people. She has her own issues that she hasn't ever tried to tell me and I don't give enough fucks to even think about asking her.
Her tongue licks at the head of my cock, teasing me. I don't do teasing so I reach for a handful of her pink hair, guiding her mouth to take all of me. She gags slightly and I release her. I know she likes it rough, more rough than I'm willing to go with her. Ever.
"Fuck, Tessa." The name slips from my mouth without a single cohoerant thought of the blonde girl.
Molly immediatly tenses and pulls away from me. "Really?" She rolls her eyes.
"What?" I clear my throat.
"I heard you."
"You didn't hear anything and even if you did, don't act like you haven't called me Lou-"
"Shut up," she cuts me off, holding up a hand as she waves it dramatically. "Do you want me to finish?" Her tone changes and she looks at me with this weird sympathetic look like she needs to feel sorry for me or some shit. The idea infuriates me. She's just as lonely and fucked up as I am, who is she to feel bad for me?
"No," I sigh and pull my pants back up. When I stand to my feet and push my phone into my pocket she still has that look.
:"I'm not walking you out," she laughs, back to normal for a moment, then she says, "Be careful with this shit. Girls like her don't ever end up with fuck-ups like you."
Her eyes grow even more sad for me and I feel like puking all over her black rug. She wasn't even trying to insult me, she's being real and honest but I don't need her advice. I don't want to end up with Tessa. I want to fuck her and win. That's all.
I don't reply to Molly's comment, I just walk out of the door and drive back to my house.
The pounding at the door won't stop. The man behind the door calls my name and I try to be a quiet as I can when I open the closet door and hide inside. I close the door and wait, covering my ears as the pounding gets louder.
"Get out here now!" His voice booms. My father is drunk again, he's drunk every night now.
With one final hit, his fist snaps the wood on the door and the cracking of the wood sends a shiver down my spine. I hate that I'm afraid of him, I shouldn't be. I'm twelve and I'm pretty tall for my age. I should be able to defend myself.
Why am I afraid? I'm so pathetic. His voice mixes with the other men's voices, are they here again, I'm not sure. They shouldn't be because he's here, but maybe he wouldn't protect us anyway.
The closest door opens and I scoot back against the wall until I have no where left to hide.
I wake with a shout, shouting into the empty, lonely space. I've stayed in this room for nearly three days now and not one person has called, not one person has knocked on my door. That's what happens when you're invisible, no one gives a fuck about you and you have no one to give a fuck about.
I reach for the dirty black t-shirt on the floor next to my bed and wipe it across my sweat soaked face. My hair is damp and my vision is blurry, mixing the past and the present, keeping my lack of a future out of this mess for now.
I suppose I wouldn't say lack of, I'l be one of those men who works too much, fucks to much, and comes home to an empty house every night. I'll be successful financially and I'll buy a house even bigger than Ken's and never invite him over. Just to prove a point. I'm not sure what that point is, but I have one somewhere in there. Somewhere.
I'm getting the fuck out of this bed today. When I get to campus, I seek out Tessa immediately. She's done something different to her hair. Just cut it, I think? It looks nice, mostly the same but the change is just enough for me to notice. I'm sure everyone has noticed, including her sidekick Landon who's walking out of the class with her now.
"You've cut your hair Theresa," I acknowledge her new look and she turns around quickly.
"Hey, Hardin." Tessa greets me, her cheeks reddening as she begins to walk faster.
"How was your weekend?" I ask her. She grabs Landon's arm and pulls him to walk away from me.
"Good, I'll see you around!" Tessa yells, dragging her friend along.
"What was that about?" Landon asks her.
"Nothing, I just don't like Hardin." She replies. I get it, she doesn't like me. Does she have to annoucne it to the entire fucking campus?
Fuck.
"At least you don't have to see him often." I hear Landon say as I turn the corner.
Another person who despises me, I'm so surprised. Shocked really.
As I walk around the streets of the campus to make my way to my car, I find Zed sitting on a bench outside the Science building, a cigarette between his lips.
"Hey," he looks up at me, smoke blowing from his mouth.
"Hey." I don't know if I should sit down or walk away. I don't even know what fucking brought me over here in the first place. I should just go find Tessa and entertain myself.
"Have you made any progress with the girl?" Zed asks me.
"Yes." I lie. "You?"
I wait impatiently as he takes another drag from a cigarette. "Nah. I'm feeling weird about it, aren't you?"
"Nah," I repeat the word he uses too much. He shrugs his shoulders and I decide to find Tessa now while Zed's here being a pussy and smoking too many cigarettes.
I stop and get a cofffee and down the thing in less than two minutes. Why am I so anxious? I take my time to get to Steph's builidng. As I'm walking down the corridor, I spot her red hair. "Hardin! You looking for me?" She asks.
"Not exactly." I glance across the hallway, toward the door of her room.
"Ohhh, got it." She laughs and adjusts her cleavage. "Well, I'll go find something to do so you can have some time with her." Steph begins to walk away, back toward the exit, she turns around when she reaches the end of the hallway.
:"You're welcome, asshole."
"I'm not thanking you" I tell her and knock on the door to her room.
"Steph isn't back yet." Tessa says as soon as she opens the door. She doesn't look at me once before she walks to her bed. She does leave the door open instead of slamming it in my face. That's a decent start.
"I'll wait." I sit down on Steph's bed and look over at Tessa's side of the room.
"Suit yourself." She complains with a groan and childishly pulls her blanket over her head. I laugh and watch her still body, wondering what's going through her mind. I tap my fingers against Steph's headboard, hoping to annoy her enough that she'll get up and talk to me. Just a few minutes later, an alarm starts beeping. She turns it off.
Is she going somewhere? With who?
"You going somewhere?" I ask Tessa.
"No." She shakes her head and continues, "I was taking a twenty minute nap."
She sits up and rubs her hands over her eyes.
"You set an alarm to be sure your nap is only twenty minutes?" I laugh, mentally wishing I could get some sleep more than every once in a while.
"Yeah, I do." I watch as she neatly lays her textbooks out in order of her class schedule. I shoudn't catch onto this but I do. I've been watching her. She takes a small binder and rests it next to the neat stack of books. She's fucking obsessive.
"Are you OCD or something?" I rudely ask her.
"No, I just like things a certain way. There's nothing wrong with being organized, Hardin." She's so condescending. She's actually a very unpleasant girl, despite how sweet she appears. I laugh at the idea that she must think she's so perfect and polished but she actually has one of the worst tempers I've seen and she judges people like it's her job.
I walk closer to her and grab a stack of papers from her bed just as she looks up at me. She reaches for them but I tease her, lifting them to high for her to grab. I toss them into the air and watch the white pages float through the air before falling into a scattered mess on her floor. Her mouth falls open and her cheeks flush with anger.
"Pick them up." She demands in a clipped tone. I smirk at her, wondering if she actually thinks I would pick her papers up. I keep pushing her anger by grabbing another stack of papers and scattering them to the floor.
"Hardin stop!" She's yelling now. I repeat the action until she charges toward me, shoving me away from her bed.
"Someone doesn't like their stuff being messed with." I tease her, laughing at her expense. She's so angry now, much angrier than a normal person would be over something so stupid.
"No! I don't!" She shouts. She's worked up, she despises me and I can't help but thrive off it it. Her energy is breathing life into me and I'm just as pissed off as she is and I need to have her. Now. I take a quick step toward her, grabbing her wrists and cornering her against the wall. She stares at me, not even close to backing down and I can see the way her eyes change from anger to hunger. If I know anything about women, it's when they are turned on and Tessa is definitely turned on. She stares into my eyes, her eyes quickly dart to my mouth and that's when I'm positive that she wants this to happen. She wants me. She may not like me but she is attracted to me. It's mutual, I want to tell her. I stare back, wanting to tell her that I don't like her either, it's pure lust, just like she feels with me. A very high level of lust, but lust the same.
"Hardin, please," she whispers.
Her voice is low, wanting to tell me to go away and to kiss her at the same time. I know this because I want to run as far as I can from this girl, but here I stand, my eyes on her mouth. Her chest is rising and falling so fast and she's staring at me, waiting. I release her wrist but use my other hand to take them both. Her tongue peeks out, covering her bottom lip and I lose it. I reach up, just needing to touch her and the moment my fingers graze her skin, she sighs. The noise is so faint, so weak that I don't even think she realizes she made it. I heard it though, I heard it and I'm obsessed with it.
I press my body against hers, pinning her gently to the wall. She groans into my mouth and her arms reach up and wrap around my shoulders. Her tongue follows mine, moving perfectly with my claiming lips. I grip my hands onto the tops of her thighs and lift her up to me. I'm holding her against me, my heart is beating so fucking fast and I'm so turned on by her that I don't know how I will ever stop this. Tessa's body clings to mine still and her mouth doesn't stop taking mine as I walk us back to her bed.
Tessa pulls at my hair and drives me fucking wild. I feel like every inch of my body has been scattered all over this small room, then when she moans, her breath an uncontrollable mess, I sit back on her bed, bringing her with me. I move her to sit on my lap, keeping my hands on her full hips. I know my fingers are digging in her skin, a sign of my body trying to comprehend what's happening. I've done this before, many fucking times, so why can't I keep up with this? I can't keep up with her.
Fuck," I mutter, feeling my cock straining against my jeans.
I move my hands from her waist and tug at the bottom of her shirt, she moans and I pull my mouth away from hers to remove her shirt. My eyes trace down from her eyes to her full and swollen lips, to her chest. Her tits are covered by a black bra, no lace, no sparkles, just worn black fabric, and I find it oddly appealing. I bite down on my lip, trying to have some control over myself and not rip her bra from her soft body. Her tits are full, swollen and busting out from the material. There's a freckle there, just under her neckline and I want to kiss it. I want to cover her entire body with my mouth and taste her release on my tongue as I make her come.
"You're so sexy, Tess," I breathe into her mouth. She gasps and I swallow the incredible sound.
My control continues to diminish as she rocks harder against my body. I wrap my arms around her back to bring her even closer to me, our chests are touching as the door handle jingles. Tessa jumps of of my lap and reaches for her shirt. The trance we were in is broken as she pulls her t-shirt over her head and down to cover her body.
Steph steps through the door and fakes a shocked expression. I hope Tessa doesn't genuinely like her or believe her to be her friend. Steph's personality is faker than her kool-aid dyed hair.
"What the hell did I miss?" Steph asks, her hands on her hips.
"Nothing!" I shout, standing to my feet. Steph winks at me as Tessa stares at the wall, avoiding eye contact. I leave the room without looking back. My chest is killing me, my heart is beating loudly, I feel like a maniac.
When I get back to my room I intend to take the longest shower I've ever taken and try to forget the way she makes me feel. This is getting fucking messy. It wasn't supposed to be messy. I wasn't supposed to crave her mouth and her mind equally. I was supposed to get what I wanted and move along with my damn life.
The water runs cold and I finally step out onto the cold tile. When I open the cabinet for a towel, the bottle of brown liquor hidden inside by who knows who, smiles at me, reminding me of it's control over me. I've gone this long without that draw to the cabinet, why am I focusing on it now? I half expected one of the guys in the house to finish it off by now but secretly wished they wouldn't.
I have this nasty need to control everything in my life. So far, since I've been sober, I've done a damn good job of being fully aware and in control of my thoughts and my actions, but her gray eyes won't stop looking at me, her brilliant mind won't stop begging me to unlock more of her secrets.
The bottle calls for me but I slam the cabinet closed. I still have control.
I won't let Tessa or that fucking bottle control me.
I won't.
I stare up at the ceiling when I finally make it to my bed and I just know it's going to be a long night.
...
It's dark, so dark in this closet. I'm tired of hiding in here but there's no where else to go. My mum's scrams won't drown out and no matter how many times I search downstairs for her, I can't find her. I hear her, but don't see her. I saw them though, the men. I heard them and I saw them and their voices echoed through the walls of this small house and into my head. The closet door opens and I curl back, hoping not to be seen but slightly wanting them to just end the sounds of my mum screaming.
A hand reaches through the small space and I look around for something to defend myself with other than a coat hanger.
"Hardin?" A soft voice quietly calls my name through the dark.
The rack of hanging clothes opens in the middle and she steps in, looking directly at me.
Tessa.
She's here? How?
"Don't be scared Hardin," Tessa sits down next to me, her body is so warm and she's not afraid. My mum's screams have stopped and my heart slows from a panic to a cool rhythm as she wraps her small hand around mine.
(Hey guys!! I'm on my first day of a month long trip, this is the longest I've ever traveled and I'm equal parts nervous and excited. Well, more excited lol. I'm going to Los Angeles for one day, then I'll be in London this weekend where I have two signings, then Germany, then Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia. Then, I'm going to NYC for only a day (no signings, just a public speaking thing, then Dallas for RT (huge Romance writer conference). Are any of you going to any of these signings or have you ever traveled/lived in any of these places?? )