Bad Romance (8 page)

I couldn’t stop that smirk. “Knifed? What are you, a character in West Side Story?”

She opened her mouth, shut it, opened, shut, then she glared. It was so goddamned cute. I glanced up, tree, her back hit, I watched her eyes go wide, she sucked in a breath and I pinned her with my body.

I could feel her heart pounding against my chest as I leaned into her. Shaking hands landed on my chest and she weakly attempted to push me away.

“Stop.” Her voice quivered. She wouldn’t look up at me and that shy little act made me want her even more.

“I’m not doing anything.” I leaned forward and nuzzled against her ear.

There was no mistaking the tiny whimper that came out of her. Satisfaction coursed through me and I didn’t think about my next move when I grabbed her chin, lifted enough for me to go in, and my lips were on hers. I devoured her mouth like I was fucking starving. I nipped at her bottom lip. She let out a little sound, her lips parted and I plundered that fucking mouth. I staked my claim on her and consumed every inch of that kiss so no one else could come close to what I was doing. Her tongue fought back against mine and she tilted her head, giving me more access. Her hands fisted my shirt and she shoved.

“No.” She was shaking her head roughly. I could tell she was trying to convince herself this was wrong. The dude that had just humiliated her in front of the whole university was now turning her on.

She turned her head to the side, and I saw tears pool in her eyes.

Shame.

I would recognize that look anywhere. I’d looked that way many times after one of my father’s beatings.

The painful tug in my gut gave her the room she needed to shove me off and sprint into the house. I got my bearings and leapt onto the front porch just as she slammed the door. My hands gripped the frame and I pressed my forehead against the large oak door.

“Clara, this isn’t over,” I growled.

I knew she was right on the other side. I felt her, my dick needed her.

Fuck, this was all so fucked.

I shoved away from the door and snarled, “I’m coming back tonight after classes. You’re going to let me in and we are going to finish this.”

“Clara! Oh my God, what the fuck is going on? Why is Dax screaming outside?” Shannon would let me in.

“Hey, Shannon? It’s Dax. Clara and I are having a bit of a misunderstanding. Can you open the door?” Or I would break the fucking thing down.

“Um, yeah ho—” I could hear muffled voices. I pressed my ear to the door. God, I was like a fucking gossipy female right now. I shoved off, and then I heard heavy feet hightailing it through the house.

“
Fuck.” My teeth were clenched and I could see spittle
come out a little as I cursed.

I shoved away from the porch and moved around to the back of the house. No one had fencing on this street. I could walk right into Clara’s backyard. If you asked me right in this moment why the fuck I cared so much that Clara seemed unaffected by my public humiliation, in all honesty I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I just knew that I needed her to react. Deep in my bones I wanted to see her get pissed off, rage at me. Because deep down inside I knew that it meant I owned her. It was the most fucked-up shit, but I didn’t really care. I had to own Clara’s every last emotion. I knew I couldn’t have love, compassion, lust— so I would take the rage, hate, and aggression. But fuck, being pressed against her was like the sweetest hell.

I reached for the back French door handle just as Shannon flashed into view and flicked the lock. She backed up just as I flashed my gaze in her direction. I know I looked like an angry beast. I was panting, sweat was dripping from my forehead, and my clothes were sticking to my chest. It was hot as fucking hell out here and I wan
ted the fuck inside this house.

Jiggling the handle, I heard the door creak. I could break this shit clean off if I really wanted to. I knew that I was already riding a fine line with the legal edge at this point. Between the video leaking, being the main participant in the video, and Clara drugged in it, I knew that I couldn’t push it. Talking my way into a bedroom, house, anything with a female involved had never been an issue before.

“Shannon,” I warned. I kept my voice low, almost threatening.

She backed away again. The light coming in through the window cast a shadow over half of her confused expression.

“Look Dax, I don’t really know the full extent of what is going on, but I know if I let you in, I won’t have a place to live.” She paused, reached her hand forward and shrugged. “Sisters before manwhores.” And she dropped a shade in my face.

My fist slammed into the side of the door. “FUCK!” I shoved my forehead against the wall and pushed hard. The pain eased my frustration, cleared my head, and gave me a new clarity. I would have to play this game better. The hurt would have to come from a different direction. I needed her to suffer, but
I also needed to be the savior.

I tilted my head back and roared up at the second story of the house.

“Tonight, Clara!”

I stalked down the back porch, went to go around the corner and my nose came in contact with a fist.

What. The. Fucking. Fuck.

Todd stood inches from me, his finger in my face. He looked ready to kill me. Only one other time had he looked this way, and it had been over a girl also. The only time we had come to blows was when I’d fucked the girl he was dating his junior year of high school. The girl was only using him to get closer to me. So I gave her closer. Was it a dick move? Absofuckinglutely. But pussy was pussy and Todd had to learn just like I had that chicks couldn’t be trusted. He was always looking for the nerdy types. So far they had all spread their legs for me. This was the first time I gave a shit though. Clara was all mine. I was taking over her life until she was consumed with only me. I didn’t give a flying fuck how irrational it all was, my hurt and pain needed an outlet. Remembering what I had felt when she turned her back on me all those years ago fueled the rage—and lust.

Whoa.

Well, yeah, I wanted to fuck her. She’d grown into the most beautiful female I’d ever seen. No amount of primp and curl could outdo Clara in all her natural glory. Besides, I couldn’t forget her tits. My dick got hard and I knew I would have to find an outlet for that very soon or my hand would be chaffed by the end of the night.

“That was over the fucking line, Dax!” Todd stabbed his fingers through his hair and I watched him take a step back. He was pacing in front of me, shaking his head. He looked back up at me and it was then I knew regret for real. The mixture of seeing Clara hold back all her emotions and then Todd with that look of disappointment reflected back at me—I just couldn’t.

“
Yeah well, get the fuck over it. She’s just another piece of ass. I’m already forgetting about it and her. Now you have no more distractions, and you can get your face out of her cunt an
d back on track with the frat.”

I pressed my fingers to my nose and felt the warm fluid flowing freely. Fucking asshole got me good. I pinched it off and tipped my head down. I wasn’t looking at him when he grabbed hold of my bicep.

“This did nothing but push me closer to her.” He sighed and dropped my arm. I refused to look up at him. “Look, I don’t know what the fuck is going on with you. I haven’t seen you act like this since you first came to live with us. I don’t know what you have to do with Clara or she does you, but I know it has to do with your past.” He didn’t talk for a long time. I glared at him from the corner of my eye. Fuck, my face hurt. Everyone kept hitting me in my face. At this point I would welcome a crotch shot.

“I’ll find it out. You know I can.”

I just smirked. It hurt like fuck but I couldn’t show weakness now. Straightening my back and giving him the full stance of badass, I allowed the blood to flow down my chin and drip onto my shirt.

Fuck. I really liked this shirt.

“Back off, Todd.”

I turned and stalked off.

Chapter Eight

Todd

Up In the Air
by Thirty Seconds to Mars started to play. My phone was on the coffee table in the greatroom and I moved quickly and grabbed it. I’d put a call in to my dad to not only find out about Clara Parker and Dax, but also to get that fucking video pulled. It had been two days since the incident and breathed I out a sigh of release that my dad’s name, Paul, flashed on the phone. I slid my thumb across the screen.

“Yeah.” My tone was curt and I cringed, instantly regretting it, but I was playing hardball with Dax Trenton. He was much better at these games than I was.

“Well, I got most of the videos off the net. I have blocks up for the embedded code that people use to download it.” He was silent for a long time, and I heard clicking of computer keys on the other end of the line.

“There is something else.” More silence.

I collapsed into the chair and grunted. I was out of patience. Clara was avoiding me like a pro and it was putting me on edge. Dax was still trying to get into the house. The girl managed to totally avoid us. I saw her in passing quickly before she disappeared into a crowd.

“The video source was pinged to your computer, Todd.” He didn’t speak again. I could almost feel his accusing eye on me. Did he really think I was capable of this shit? I pinched the bridge of my nose between two fingers.

“It was Dax,” I ground out.

I was really trying to avoid this with my dad. He felt like Dax was a son. When we adopted him we really thought growing up without worry, hunger, or abuse would make him better. This was a huge setback.

“Why?” My dad was a genius. Quite literally setting bar and setting the curve. The military went to him first when they needed encryption codes or other secret military documents secured over the net.

I fell back against the couch, closing my eyes tight. I shook my head, then realized he couldn’t see me. “I don’t know. I was honestly hoping you could help me with that. This all started when he met this girl in the video, Clara Parker.” I reached for my bottled water on the table in front of me and took a swig. “Does the name ring a bell? I get the feeling he knew her in the past and it was why he was so volatile when he first came to live with us.”

My dad snorted on the other line. “Funny. I thought he was volatile because of the abuse and sexual assault.”

We were both silent for a long stretch. Together we decided it would be in Dax’s favor to allow professionals to bring any of that up. Yet we couldn’t avoid the possibility that Clara had something to do with that past.

“Well, whatever it is, we need to sort it out. He seems hell bent on torturing this girl and she’s innocent. She’s just a girl. She doesn’t seem to know him and she looks just as confused by his actions.”

“Are you sure? I mean, she could have been hooked up with the father somehow.”

I took another drink, shaking my head. “No, I know her father. He’s a professor of archeology. They would never have run in the same circles. You just need to trace them all back to before we got Dax. I need answers if I am going to help either of them.”

More clicking of computer keys on the other end, and
then a grunt. “I’m on it. Just─” He cleared his throat. “Keep an eye on Dax. He’s almost to his future, he can’t afford setbacks.”

“
I know.” I hung up the phone. I groaned and threw my arm over my face and got ready to try and get back in Clara’s good graces. How I would do that, I ha
d no clue.

***

Clara

It’d been just over a month since what Shannon and I referred to as ‘the incident’. Dax hadn’t come back later that day like he’d threatened to do when he released the video. He’d gone ahead and threw a party instead. Probably in celebration of my fallen status in society. The thing about it all—and what I’d quickly learned—was that college life was far different than high school. If Dax did this while we were in high school, I would hear about it every second of every day. I wouldn’t live it down. It would’ve infected any social networking I was part of. I found mostly support in college. People either quickly forgot what happened, or they just didn’t care. A few feminist groups came to me to verbalize their support and offer to cut off Dax’s balls.

For the most part neither he, nor his frat were very popular at the moment. I did a clever job at avoiding. Todd was a bit more ruthless, it turned out, than Dax. I’d gotten a steady supply of surprises on my doorstep for the first two weeks. When Todd quickly realized that wasn’t going to work out for him, he went back to relentless text messages, Facebook posts on my wall, and DMs to my Facebook. I ignored them all. I didn’t block him, mostly because that was a bitchy thing to do.

I didn’t know the whole story, and for all I knew when I stopped to think about it, Todd really knew nothing about it.

The fact was I simply wasn’t ready to trust them. For one, every time I spied Dax he had another girl sitting in his lap. Literally, it was a new one every time I saw him. Tamara seemed to have moved on to a new conquest, hanging all over a very handsome dark-skinned guy. He was in my English 4 class and usually sat next to me. At first I thought it was a trick. Get me to open up, spill my guts, and give Dax more ammo. Turns out he was just a nice guy. What he was doing with a girl like Tamara was beyond me.