Break Me (Brayshaw High) - Meagan Brandy Page 0,110
the dances at the high school.”
I shrug. “I don’t people well.”
“Look at you, girl, you people just fine.”
“It’s the difference in where I was and where I belonged.” I shake my head. I give a playful eye roll so I don’t sound so stagey. “Besides, nobody talked to me, not that I made it easy or gave any effort either.”
“I talked to you,” Micah points out. “I’ve always talked to you.”
“You were in at least two of my classes every year, my writing partner in English for two. You kind of had to.”
He nods, but there’s something else in his eyes, an emotion I can’t quite read. He lifts a shoulder. “I’d have talked to you even if I wasn’t,” he admits. “In your classes, I mean.”
I could easily point out how he didn’t, but I don’t see a point. It is what it is, and it’s done with.
A smile finds my lips. “I’m glad we—”
“There you go, little Bishop.” The words spoke somewhere in the distance are a heady growl, a sheer leading comment of what’s to come.
Micah jumps three steps back as we turn to look at the guy who’s just walked in.
Dressed in black from head to toe, Royce slips farther in with slow motion-like movement.
His jeans, expensive and perfectly fit, lay against his black high-tops and he wears a crisp dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to rest on the curve of his elbow, tattoos gleaming in the low light. The white of his eyes are near nonexistent as he creeps closer with the aura of a snake.
His approach is silent.
“Smile wide at the fucker.” His lips curl in what’s meant to be a grin but is far, far from it. “Get closer, let him see what my cock did to that filthy little mouth of yours.”
My stomach hollows out and I can’t even force myself to look at Micah. Guilt colors my neck red, and it has nothing to do with being here, but everything to do with the little after-dark personal moment of ours.
“What are you doing?”
“Me?” He slides forward with a nasty chuckle, now hovering over me, caging me in—a wild animal and its prey.
The ruler and the stray.
The vein in his jaw tics angrily. “What are you playin’ at, Brielle?”
He glares through dark, tethered lashes, but the longer I look into them, the more I see.
The anger, it’s for everyone else, but the fear, it’s for me.
Or more, because of me... and invisible to all but me.
My eyes quickly flick over his body again, his nice clothes, freshly showered hair.
He was ready to celebrate, and not with just anyone.
With me.
So I ignore his foul words and mucky glower and make my way to him.
He doesn’t fight me, but it’s easy to see his instincts tell him to, so those he does battle on the inside, I’m sure of it. But not for long.
I wrap my arms around his middle and he glares down his nose at me, his body shaking slightly, rage rearing its way out, but he can’t hide the long exhale—I feel it against my chest.
I lift my chin, then slowly tip my head, exposing my neck as if offering it as a meal to a starved vampire.
His eyes fall to the angry mark he darkened up last night and his chest rumbles against mine.
“They see,” I whisper, reminding him of what he asked of me last night.
To show them, them being everyone.
Slowly, his muscles loosen. “They see, but do they know who put it there?”
I shrug, baiting him with my smirk, knowing how much he loves to bite.
And bite he does.
His arms sling greedily around me, lifting me from the floor, and my legs wrap around him.
His eyes bore into mine with a silent demand, one I’ll gladly meet.
I press my lips to his, right there in the middle of the room, and he growls his appreciation, kissing me back just as hard for all to see.
As we pull away, he grins, and then Mac is beside us, offering us both a shot.
Royce chuckles and lowers me to my feet, nodding for me to take it.
So I do.
Chapter 28
Royce
I’m a bastard. I know this.
I acted like a dick, like always, but my girl... she understood where it came from—a fucked-up mind of a guy who is desperate for all she can give me but admittedly—pitifully—fearful of the fallout he knows will follow, not that that’s an excuse.