Devil Incarnate (Boys of Preston Prep #4) - Angel Lawson Page 0,105

to hold her hips, to press marks into her flesh? Has he looked at them after, watching her all strung out after an orgasm, wearing his bruises? I wonder what it was like when he ate her pussy. When that big dumb head of his disappeared between her legs and brought her off.

Her next cry is a little too surprised, hand coming up to grab my wrist. “OW!” She shoots me a fiery glare, prying my hand off her tit. “The boobs are off limits for bruising, asshole!”

I pant into her shoulder, flexing my fingers like I’m just realizing they’re attached to my hand. In a weird way, I kind of am. So I clamp onto her hips instead, squeezing tight, and it’s not even about the bruises. It’s an admonishment.

This is exactly the kind of fight I don’t like having.

After, when I’m taking her back to the campus, it leaves a foul taste in my mouth. I roll the windows down to air out the smell of sex, but instead I’m just assaulted by the scent of her hair, whipping around us like a grumpy tempest. Neither of us says anything, and it’s not until I park at the end of the road before the intersection that I even look her way.

I think I want to apologize.

I’d rather shove hot pokers under my fingernails.

She slams the door a little too hard when she steps out, making the whole car flinch, and doesn’t look back as she walks away, chin held high.

Since Collins isn’t going to let up on the program requirement any time soon, I take Sunday to do a quick Google search on my phone for the closest meeting. There’s one at a church eight miles away.

I firmly believe that forcing me into a meeting like this is more about torture than some ridiculous attempt at rehabilitation. I know all about what real ‘help’ looks like, and it’s not something you get in some dank church basement. It’s a three-hundred dollar an hour shrink in their penthouse office that overlooks downtown. It’s medication—heaps upon heaps of brightly colored pills—red to get you up, blue to get you down, white to even it all out. It’s schedules and home visits, hiding sharp objects, finding excuses to look in on someone so they don’t feel babysat, even though that’s exactly what’s going down. It’s my mother, being wheeled out of our mansion with her lifeless body strapped down to a gurney. “To keep her safe,” they’d said.

Safe from falling off.

What a joke.

The church doesn’t even look like a church. It’s a sad little building all tucked away with other sad little buildings, and one of them is a Thai restaurant, so basically the instant I step into the place, my stomach rumbles hungrily—painfully.

The capper is when I see someone I recognize at the snack table, a sticker on his breast with his name written on it.

Warren Fucking McAllister.

I’m three steps back into the hallway when I hear my name, followed by, “The hardest part is walking through the door.”

My eyes roll so hard that I can see a brain cell offing itself just to escape the coming interaction. I turn. “Wrong place,” I tell him, “but good on you for dealing with,” I eye him, “whatever it is you’re dealing with.”

“Sex addiction,” he says bluntly. “I came to my first meeting two years ago. Now I run this one.”

“Well, I’m not a sex addict,” I say, warily watching people filter in. “At least, no more than any other regular guy. So like I said, wrong room.”

“Our group encompasses all kinds of addictions. Drugs, food, sex,” his eyebrow raises, “gambling?”

“I don’t have addictions. I have ambitions.” I pull a paper out of my back pocket. “But the judge is making me get this signed before my probation is over. How about, from one Devil to another, you sign this and let me get the fuck out of here?”

Warren looks down at the sheet and then back up at me. “This isn’t something you can network your way out of, Heston. I know things have been hard for you lately, and I’m guessing that’s not something you’re used to. You can turn this around, but it’s going to take a lot of hard work and reflection.”

“Jesus.” I look away to avoid laughing in his face. “Is this how you got Reynolds on the straight and narrow? Cliché platitudes about introspection?”

He’s the one who laughs. “Afraid not. Reynolds’ judge shipped him off, and