Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,98

my tired body feels sated and well-taken care of. When the phone vibrates for the third time, he curses and moves to stand up.

“I'll be right back,” he says, but I just smile softly because I can already feel my lids drooping, because I know the video of me and Calix is out in the world, because I know our time is already coming to an end. “Holy shit.”

I hear the words come from him in genuine shock and horror, laying my head back against the stone floor and closing my eyes.

Heavy footsteps follow Barron as he moves over to stand beside me. When I open my eyes, he crouches down to look at me.

“What?” I ask, trying to pretend like my heart isn’t beating a million miles an hour. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“Pearl Boehringer killed herself,” he tells me, and my eyes widen. Holy shit. Again?! Even when I take different paths, Pearl's seems to remain relatively the same. Guilt curdles in my stomach, but I swallow back the nervous lump in my throat. Tomorrow, it won't matter, right? Because everything will go back to the way it was. “That … and there's something else.”

“I don't want to talk about it,” I say, sitting up suddenly and looking him straight in the face. “Whatever bad news there is, it can wait until tomorrow, can't it?”

Barron's mouth flattens into a thin line, but, to my surprise, he nods, tucking his phone in the back pocket of his ruined leather pants. There are … love juices, so to speak, all over the front of them. His and mine both.

“Do you want to see my art studio?” I ask, feeling breathless suddenly, desperate to keep this night going, if only for a short while. The surprise reflected back on his features is second only to the sudden look of triumph and pleasure on his face.

Barron wants me to want him.

“I would love to see your art studio,” he says, his mouth curving into a vicious smile. A small spark of fear ricochets through me as I remember his signature personality trait: light and shadows. Nothing Barron ever does is white or black; he's all shades of gray. Instead of disappearing out the door and leaving me alone and naked in the chapel—something I wouldn't have put past him before—he retrieves my dress and helps me pull it over my head, tightening the laces as I struggle to pretend that his presence is having no further effect on me.

“Panties might be nice,” he adds, handing my discarded underwear back to me. “There's also the outdoor bathroom. You could use that to cleanup if you want.” His attention flicks down to my thighs, as if he knows that he's left his mark between them.

“Thank you,” I snap, tearing the panties from his grip and putting them on over my boots. I lead the way out the door as Barron collects his sketchbook, following behind me as I pause in the bathroom for a moment.

He doesn't give me any privacy either, slipping in to draw me while I wet a paper towel and slip into one of the stalls. It doesn't bother me as much as I thought, to have him there. Instead, I feel comforted by his presence. That doesn't change when we climb into Calix's stolen car and head back to the Diamond Point Mobile Home Park.

The only light on is the porch light, and a quick peep inside the house shows me that both my parents are asleep. I back up and bump into Barron, spinning around to find him smirking down at me, his palms on the wall on either side of my head.

The way he's looking at me, I expect a trick. With him, I'm always expecting a trick.

“I know this probably won't help matters much …” I start, swallowing back a sudden surge of desire at the closeness of his body, his smell, even the cocky arrogance spreading across his lush mouth. “But please don't hurt me here.”

There's a pause where the smirk nearly falls from his face, but he recovers it quickly, moving one of his hands off the wall to stroke strong fingers down my cheek.

“I won't hurt you again, Karma,” he says, sounding almost surprised at the admission himself. His mouth thins into a flat line and he backs up a step. I smile back, but it's hard to resist the words clinging to the tip of my tongue: yes, you will. He