Tame: A High School Bully Romance (Savannah Heirs Book 2) Page 16

  “Deal,” he replied, finally dropping his arms to release me.

  Maybe, just maybe, we’d built a little bit of that bridge just now.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Godfrey

  When I told her to dress sexy, I didn’t actually expect her to show up the way she did.

  Her tight black top showed off her cleavage, and my eyes kept darting to that line between her breasts, so all I could think of was shoving my dick between them and fucking her there. Yeah, shitty, I know. But fuck, her body was gorgeous. She was gorgeous.

  She was wearing makeup for the first time since I’d met her, and the effect made her look older, more mature. Her all-black outfit suited her better too. A fuck of a lot better than that loose, innocent girly shit I’d seen her in before. Rachel Nomar had shadows inside of her, put there by bad men who relished their darkness. But for some reason, seeing her wearing those shadows on the outside made her seem more powerful.

  “You’ve been eye-fucking her all night, bro.”

  I flicked my blue eyes over to Bonham. We were playing a friendly game of blackjack with a couple other guys from school. All around us, people were drinking, dancing, and from the telltale splashes, some had already gotten drunk enough to go skinny dipping in Rogue’s pool.

  We’d had dozens of parties here this year, and as usual, half of Smith Academy and some students from the nearby public schools had shown up. The place reeked of booze, cologne, weed, and a shit ton of horny teenagers.

  “Eye-fucking who?” I asked coolly as I laid down a couple of cards.

  Bonham scoffed under his breath. “Don’t play dumb. You can’t afford the IQ drop.”

  “You’re always very interested in Rachel,” I said with obvious irritation.

  “Well yeah, I’m a guy, and she’s a hot girl.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You have hot girls all over you at school all the time, and you hardly pay them any attention.”

  “That’s because they bore me,” he said with an unapologetic shrug. “She doesn’t bore me.”

  Yeah, she didn’t bore me, either. That was the fucking problem.

  Like they moved of their own volition, my eyes went back to where Rachel was standing with Scarlett and Stephanie Palmisano—of all fucking people. Never in a million years did I expect for those three to be hanging out together. When I first saw Rachel walk in, I started to make my way over to her, only for Scarlett to shoot me a look and swoop in before I could. Scarlett had been attached to her side ever since, and I’d been forced to sit on the sidelines like some fucking creeper.

  In a way, it was better like this. I should stay away from her.

  Scarlett was right—enough shit had happened to her. She didn’t need to get mixed up with a prick like me, but I still wanted her. I wanted to peel off those skin-tight jeans and those heels that made her ass look amazing. I wanted to hook her knee against my hip and drive into her until she screamed my name. But while I was here, checking her out every five seconds, tracking her like a fucking dog, she was over there, laughing it up with my best friend who I used to want for myself, and the chick I’d been fucking for nearly a year so that we could stash evidence in her father’s basement. I was like Scrooge looking at the fucking ghosts of lovers past, present, and future.

  “Dude. If you’re gonna pop a raging hard-on, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t sit next to me,” Bonham said, once again breaking up my thoughts.

  “Not my fault. All the chicks here are practically half-dressed,” I shot back from over my cards.

  “Why don’t you cut the shit and admit that you like her?”

  Irritation flashed over my face. I couldn’t do that, no matter how much I wanted to claim her publicly, I couldn’t. Her father basically bribed me to befriend her and get her to spill her secrets. And my father wanted me to get close enough to kill her. This situation was entirely too fucked up, even for me.

  Ignoring him, I laid down my hand, and the other guys at the card table groaned and cursed. I won, of course.

  I scooped up the hundred dollar bills and stuffed them in my pocket that was admittedly a bit tight. “I’m gonna grab another beer; you wanna come?”

  Bonham’s expression flashed with something but was quickly replaced with an expressionless mask. “Nope, I’m cool. I’ll play another round.”

  Yeah, the fuck right. I knew he didn’t want to play more cards. He’d been sitting at this fucking table all night long.

  I sighed and turned to fully face him so the other douches at the table wouldn’t overhear. “Dude. Your physical therapy is over. Your limp is much better now. If any of these fuckers even so much as look down at your foot, I’ll fucking punch them in the face.”

  I could tell that was the wrong thing to say to him, because his jaw clenched and he turned away from me. “Rachel Nomar is flirting with a guy that just walked up. You should probably go take care of that if your boner is any indication.”

  A better friend than I probably wouldn’t have let him distract me with some bullshit about a chick, but fuck, Rachel was under my skin. I spun around so fast to see what sorry motherfucker thought he could talk to what was mine. I didn’t even stop to think how dangerous that train of thought was.

  There, cupping her cheek and giving her a kiss on the forehead, was that fucker, Beau. So he had the balls to show up after all? Great. I’d been looking for a reason to compare dick sizes. I stalked forward with the cool, calm confidence I wore like a mask, and stood close enough to hear what they were saying while still staying out of eyesight.

  “I thought you couldn’t make it,” Rachel said. She didn’t sound excited about the fact that he was here. In fact, she looked uncomfortable. He was all up in her space, and I had half a mind to put some distance between them with my fucking fist.

  “When you never texted me back, I got worried,” Beau answered.

  The dude was wearing his stupid leather jacket with the stupid motorcycle club logo on it, drawing the attention of every female in this place. Women had a thing for bad boys; they always wanted to make the bad boy good for only them. And even though this guy wanted to seem like the type to be the hero, I knew that he was nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I was a master at reading people.

  “What you mean to say is that you didn’t like that I still came here without you,” Rachel replied.

  Meanwhile, Stephanie was eyeing Beau and licking her lips, and Scar had her eyes peeled for Rogue, likely already knowing where this shitshow was headed.

  I didn’t give him a chance to give her a sweet talking excuse. I picked that moment to dive in.

  “Hey, Beau,” I said, coming up behind him and smacking him hard enough on the back that I felt the sting of his leather against my palm. He flinched slightly, making me smirk. He might be a kid of some motorcycle club fuckhead, but all that leather and tight jeans he was sporting didn’t hide what I already knew—he was a pansy.

  I slid between him and Rachel, tossing my arm around her shoulders. Scarlett looked between us both, biting her lip in worry, but I ignored her. “What brings you here?” I asked.

  Rachel tried to shrug my shoulder off of her so, like a gentleman, I complied...and instead reached down and stuffed my hand in the back pocket of her tight jeans so I could squeeze her ass. She sighed at me but didn’t try to move me again. Smart girl. I would’ve gone for her tit next.

  “I’m just here because Rachel invited me. She wanted me to come,” Beau said, smoothing back his greased-up brown hair as he looked at me with challenge. His eyes followed the trajectory of my hand, and I gave Rachel’s ass another little pinch that made her squeak slightly, although she tried to hide it behind a fake ass cough.

  “Introduce me to your friend, Rachel,” Stephanie interjected, and for once, I was actually glad of her presence.

  Don’t get me wrong, Stephanie was hot as fuck, but she’d always annoyed me. She was currently eyeing Beau up and down with appreciation though, which meant she
could end up being quite helpful to me tonight.

  Rachel made quick work of introducing them, and it made me grin to see that she was just as happy to get him off her hands as I was. Not a fucking flicker of jealousy crossed those crystal blue eyes of hers as Stephanie and he talked, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say it made me happy.

  Stephanie made quick work of things, grabbing his hand and moving him to go dance with the rest of the gyrating bodies. He didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye. Within seconds, Beau was swallowed up by the drunk crowd, and Palmisano was grinding against him like a cat in heat.

  “You need to rescue your boyfriend?” I asked Rachel.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” she growled back. Feisty little thing. Had I hit a sore spot? She stared at him, and for a split second, I wondered if I had misread the situation. Maybe she did like him.

  Too bad.

  “You wanna dance?” I asked her while Scarlett tapped her foot in annoyance, giving me that look that said don’t fuck this up, Godfrey.

  “Oh, so you’re done just watching me from across the room?” Rachel replied with false sweetness.

  Why the hell did it make me want to kiss that damn snappy mouth every time she called me out?

  “How’d you know I was watching you?” I asked. “You must’ve been watching me too.”

  Her cheeks didn’t turn an adorable shade of pink. She didn’t look down at the floor and shuffle her feet. She met me head on, glaring back up at me like she knew exactly what she was doing. “Yeah, I’ve been watching,” she shrugged.

  Scarlett watched our back and forth, and she must have seen something between us that caught her off guard because her eyes widened in surprise.

  I tugged on Rachel’s jeans, guiding her towards the dance floor, but Scarlett placed a hand on my chest to stop me. In one quick movement, she lifted up on her toes and kissed me on my cheek. She then brushed her plush lips against my ear and spoke over the music, but still low enough for only me to hear.

  “I think you’ve finally met your match, Godfrey Taylor.”

  And then, she was gone.

  I frowned at her retreating back as she swerved around the crowd, but I didn’t want to stop and think what the fuck that was supposed to mean. So instead, I tugged Rachel further into the crowd, making sure to mean mug any bastard that bumped against her. Once we were in the center, I spun her around and gripped her hips, crashing us together in time to the music.

  It didn’t take long for the heat of the packed-in bodies to raise my body temperature, or for Rachel’s skin to start glistening in the way that only chicks’ skin could. I don’t know what kind of fancy as fuck skin girls had, but I swear, I wanted to lick the sheen right off her collarbone.

  The music was loud and fast, but Rachel didn’t seem to be intimidated by it or by the close proximity of bodies. She melted against me, her hands moving up to sway with the song, and when she closed her eyes and tilted her head back, it was one of the sexiest fucking things I’d ever seen.

  I loved to see her so free like this. She didn’t have the sad as fuck look in her eyes. She wasn’t hunched over or looking like she wanted to hide. She was just...a girl dancing to the music, looking like nothing else mattered.

  One of my hands moved to splay against her back, and my fingertips burned into the exposed skin there. I wanted to curve my fingers and dip them under the clingy fabric of her top. I wanted to take the front of it between my teeth and yank it down until her breasts popped out, but I wouldn’t do that with a roomful of people. I wanted her for my eyes only.

  When her arms came around my neck and tugged on my hair, I hummed in satisfaction. I saw her flinch away from everyone else—Beau, her father, even Scarlett. But me? She molded against me instead of shying away. If anything, she pressed into me even more. When I saw her eyes dart down to my lips, I smirked. Rachel Nomar wanted me as much as I wanted her. When I felt one of her hands trail down my back and fit into my back pocket, giving my ass an impressive squeeze, my smirk nearly turned into a grin.

  Her hips continued to sway against mine, and my hard cock pressed painfully against my pants. I was doing a terrible fucking job of keeping her at a distance. I shouldn’t want her, but I fucking had to have her.

  I shoved my leg between both of hers, pushing her legs apart, and bent my knee slightly as I brought it up against her pussy. Even through the rough fabric of our jeans, I could feel her heat seeping out, and goddamn, that was hot.

  I leaned into her, my mouth scratching against her ear. “You kissed your boyfriend Beau over there,” I said, just as I ground my thigh against her cunt, making her shudder.

  “He’s not my boyfriend, and I only kissed him that day to prove a point,” she retorted, her voice barely loud enough for me to hear over the music.

  “What point is that, princess?” I asked, pulling her flush against my body so that her tits pressed against my chest.

  “That you cared if I did.”

  I lost it. Lost all damn control. I needed her—all of her—now.

  I reached my hand up to that damn tight ponytail she’d been clinging to and ripped the rubber band from it, letting her long hair fall in waves down to her waist. She shook against me as I twisted my fingers in the incredibly soft strands of her pale blonde hair, and she let out a hiss.

  I was caught up in the moment. I was pulling her closer to my lips. I had half a mind to get her off on this dance floor and then fuck her upstairs in Rogue’s guest bedroom.

  “Stop,” she cried out in a voice so weak that it made my entire body freeze and go on high alert.

  I immediately pulled back so I could look at her, wondering what the hell I did wrong. We were ninety to nothing just two seconds ago. She ran her fingers through her hair and stared at a few pieces that had fallen in her eyes, and by the look on her face you would have thought that she was touching knives.

  “Where is it?” she asked, her voice edging on panic.

  “Where’s what?”

  “My hair tie,” she said, looking around wildly.

  Her entire body began to tremble, her lip a quivering mess. It wasn’t until a tear fell that my mind could catch up to what was happening enough for me to open my palm and hand her the rubber band I’d pulled from her locks. She looked goddamn terrified.

  Fuck. What had I done?

  I knew she always wore it up, and that she seemed to hate it, but I had no idea it had to do with what had happened to her.

  As quickly as she could, she gathered her long strands and quickly put it back up in another ponytail. The moment her hair was safely back in place, she slumped in shame.

  I didn’t move, didn’t speak. Even with the pounding music and the tightly-packed bodies all around us moving to the music, the two of us were still as statues. She’d never been scared of me before. Never. Not even when I was a stranger yanking her out a wrecked car and getting her all scraped up with asphalt and glass. Not even when I slapped my hand across her cheek to snap her out of her full-blown screaming freak out.

  I didn’t know what she needed. The only thing I knew right then was that I wanted it to be me.

  “I can’t breathe,” she choked out before pushing past me.

  I followed after her, feeling lost and guilty. I’d never once cared about a girl this way. Never once cared about the consequences of my intensity. But I would have walked over glass to get that damn look of terror off her face.

  She moved past people, desperately trying to inch around them without being touched, but with the house as packed as it was, it was proving to be impossible. Every time a body would block her path, her panic seemed to ramp up even more.

  “Fuck this,” I growled, catching up to her and taking the lead. Stepping in front of her, I started shoving people out of the way.

  When we were out of the main room, we rounded the corner and took the stairs two at a time. When we were at the top, I guided her to the room I’d been staying in. The moment she was inside, she crumb
led to a mess on the floor, holding her hand up to warn me to keep away.

  I stared down at her, feeling my heart pound in my chest as I stood there, not knowing what the fuck to do. Rachel was crouched down, her forehead propped against her knees and her hands digging into her scalp like she wanted to rip every single strand from her head. She was shaking, and the sight made me want to punch my fist through the wall.

  Instead, I crouched down beside her, careful to keep some distance between us. “Talk to me, princess.”

  “Just go away,” she whispered so quietly that I could barely hear her over the bass of the music downstairs.

  “No.”

  She picked her head up to look at me, her blue eyes flashing with not just anguish, but anger. Good, I thought. I would much rather see her spitting mad than that hopeless look of brokenness from before.

  “Newsflash, just because my dad wants you around, doesn’t mean I do,” she spat.

  “This started before your dad got involved, and you know it,” I replied.

  “What the fuck do you want from me?” she cried, throwing her arms up. “You could go downstairs right now and have any of those girls down there, drama free, baggage free.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not interested in them. I’m interested in you,” I replied honestly, surprising the fuck out of both of us.

  “Why?” she demanded. “Johnny Jack’s guys ripped pieces from me that I can’t get back. I’ll never be shiny and smooth again.”

  “I like it jagged,” I replied, because it was true. I didn’t want perfection. I just wanted her.

  “You think you’re gonna fix me? Is that it?” she asked, laughing humorlessly. “I’m broken and dirty. You can’t fix me. So if I’m just a pity project of yours, get out right now and leave me the fuck alone.”

  The way she saw herself pissed me off, and I suddenly snapped. “Listen to me,” I demanded, my voice harsh enough that her blue eyes snapped to mine. “Be angry. Be furious. But just because those fuckers tried to break you, doesn’t mean they succeeded. Don’t let them win.”