Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,101

picks up the painting of Little Bee, cracks his candy between pearly white teeth, and then disappears out the door. I watch him head toward the Aston Martin, my heart sinking and a well of loneliness opening up within me. That's it? He's just done with me now?

I watch him, hating how happy it makes me when he actually comes back.

That's the shit I need to stop doing, letting other's actions influence my own happiness. I am the source of my happiness. I must also remember that I am the designer of my own catastrophe.

Barron has his sketchbook now, that and a couple of beers. He uses a bottle opener from Calix's key ring and then hands the drink over to me. It's even cold.

“Cooler in the trunk,” he says, gesturing with his chin in the direction of the stolen car. Calix, Raz, and Barron act like they don't even really like each other, yet Barron took Calix's fancy ass car, as if it were nothing.

We clink our bottles together as Barron takes a seat in Cathy's favorite chair, this paint-splattered green Adirondack chair in the corner. He flips the cover up on the sketchbook and then glances over at me.

“I may very well draw your tits this time,” he says, giving me a lascivious little smile. “Or other parts of you. My face is well-acquainted with your—”

“What about your friends?” I quip, interrupting him before he can mention his tongue on my cunt again. Just the thought of it makes me want to take him into my room for the rest of the night. “What if they see those drawings?”

“Then they'll know you're mine,” he says, his voice dark and dangerous. But that anger, it isn't directed at me. I bite my lower lip for a moment, wondering if I should challenge his bullshit caveman mine, mine, mine nonsense. Only … this is my night. Tomorrow, it'll all be gone. If I want to enjoy a guilty pleasure, that's my prerogative, isn't it? “But they won't look. They know that anyone who touches my sketchbook gets their face broken.” Barron pauses to look up at me. “Except for you. You pepper sprayed me, and I let it go. That must account for something?”

A long moment of silence follows, and I glance toward the glass walls of the greenhouse, reminded of the chapel and my palms pressed into its own cool, glass exterior. I move over to the plug-in and yank the lights free, leaving us with moonlight and shadows.

“I'm tempted to make a Titanic joke …” I start, reaching back for the laces on the corset. “Draw me like one of your French girls?” I let the gown fall to the floor in a puddle of black tulle and lace. “But you probably haven't seen it.”

“Will the lifeboats be seated according to class?” Barron retorts, quoting the movie and then smirking at me as he puts his pencil to the page.

“I'd be locked below deck with the other peasants as the boat sank,” I reply, sitting on the edge of the table in the center of the room, fern fronds teasing my naked skin as the sound of Barron's charcoal tip scrapes across the paper, staining his beautiful hands.

“I'd rescue you; I'd be the Rose to your Jack.”

Fuck, he's charming when he wants to be …

I close my eyes, a smile lighting on my face.

I stay that way for a while, until Barron's footsteps bring my head up, my eyes opening to see him standing in front of me. He shows me the drawing, of this beautiful girl with her head thrown back, moonlight creating enigmatic shadows on her bare skin.

“There's no way that girl is me,” I whisper as Barron chucks the sketchbook aside, and steps between my thighs.

“No,” he agrees as he slides his palms down the curves of my waist. “You're much prettier.”

His mouth finds mine as my hands fumble with the fly on his leather pants, freeing the velvety length of his cock into my suddenly sweaty palm. I stroke Barron as he kisses me, claiming me with his tongue, imprinting himself on me in a way that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to forget.

I guide him to the wet heat between my thighs and let him fuck me into the table until I come.

“Stay with me tonight?” I ask, sweaty and shaking in his arms. Barron nods and lets me lead him inside and down the hall to my bedroom, watching as