Queen of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #4) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,163

do," I snarled. "The bitch failed to...do whatever the fuck it was that she was trying to do and-"

"Rape," Saint said, the word cutting through the air. "Let's not dance around it, Kyan. The girl was attempting to rape you."

"She was half my fucking size," I snapped. "And there was no fucking way I would have gotten hard for her, so I think you're getting yourself mixed up. Besides, I'm a-"

"Man? What does that have to do with it? You think because you have a penis it is impossible for someone to force a sexual interaction upon you against your wishes?" His calm tone was getting my blood hot and my hand curled into a fist as I glanced towards the door that Tatum had closed after her. I didn't want any of my family getting wind of this shit. I didn't need the headache of that kind of rumour circulating about me.

"Of course I don't think that," I snapped. "I was the one who had her pawing at me. Who woke up with my pants half off and her fucking hand on my dick while she tried to get her mouth on it too. Do you have any fucking idea what that feels like?"

"No," Saint replied calmly. "I cannot begin to fathom how it must have felt for you to wake up like that, your mind clouded by the drug she'd given you and your power stolen from you. But I have had control taken from me on many occasions and I have been forced into a lot of situations I wished I could escape from. I don't understand what it would feel like to be touched like that against my will, but I do know that the effect that night had on you lingered on afterwards. And I know that since she kidnapped you for a second time and you found out that it had in fact been her stalking you rather than some pervert chasing after our girl, you haven't dealt with the knowledge at all."

I stood up suddenly, knocking my chair over behind me in my haste as my heart thundered in my chest and the need to destroy something consumed me.

Saint got in my face as I tried to circle the table and I shoved him hard enough to knock him back a step.

"Get out of my fucking way about this, Saint," I warned him.

"No," he snapped. "You have had time to process it. I've waited for you to either find your own way to deal with it or to come to one of us for help, but I see now that you won't do that. You want to bury it. You want to pretend it never happened and forget she ever existed. But as much as I'm sure you're trying to convince yourself that her death was the end of it, I assure you it wasn't."

I punched him so hard his head snapped back and the fury in me almost boiled over as I waited for him to strike me in retaliation. But he didn't. He just pushed his tongue into his cheek and moved to stand right in front of me again.

"Tell me when you started tying girls up to fuck them?" he asked in low voice and I sneered at him.

"Who gives a shit?"

"I do," he replied firmly. "Not when you were doing it to the girls you were fucking casually, but now that you're doing it to our girl too. I care."

I flinched away from that accusation, shaking my head in a denial that wouldn't pass my lips. "That's not the same," I said eventually. "Tatum likes it. I'm not doing anything with her that she doesn't want me-"

"Of course you're not. Do you think you'd still be breathing if I thought you'd hurt her like that?"

Silence fell between us then because I knew I wouldn't be, and I knew I wouldn't want to be either. We had a bond so unbreakable it might as well have been forged in iron. But there was one thing in this world that would make us turn on each other as quick as blinking and hurting that girl was it. Fuck knew how we'd made it to this place after the way things had started between us and her, but there was no going back for any of us now.

"What do you want from me?" I asked him when it didn't seem like he was going to spell it out without prompting.

"I want you