"You don't know anything," I say, defending him despite my mixed feelings. All I know is that I'm irritated with Caulter.
Caulter leans in close to me, slips his finger underneath one of the straps on my dress. "I know that you're not the good little straight-laced girl your father wants, the poster child for his campaign. I know that you're so fucking pent-up with all your studying and being responsible and being so damn perfect all the time that you've been dying for someone like me to come along who will let you out of your pretty little shell and make you feel something."
Now I'm beyond irritated. I put my hands on his chest and try to push him away, but he grabs my wrists and holds me tight. "You don't know a thing about me," I say.
"I know that you're living up to everyone else's idea of who you should be," he says. "I don't think for a fucking second you want to go to Harvard, be a lawyer or a doctor or whatever the hell daddy has planned for you. I see you with your sketchpad, drawing all the time. You just don't have the fucking balls to do what you want to do."
It's somehow over the line, him watching me draw, noticing things about me. He notices too many things about me. I yank my wrists away and push him, hard. "Fuck you." I spew the words from my mouth like they're poison. "Fuck you, Caulter. You're so damn high and mighty, rebelling against anyone and everything because you're too cool for conformity. Yet here you are, doing exactly what your mother wants you to do because....why, exactly? She won't give you your paycheck? You think rebelling means you know who you are? It just means you're full of shit."
I walk out of the room before he can respond, anger flooding my body. He just gets so far under my damn skin. He's so infuriating and smug and self-satisfied. He acts like he's so much more mature than I am, with so much more experience under his belt. He's just a trust fund baby who doesn't know the least little bit about things like obligation and family.
Later, I lay in bed, my head resting on the pillow while I prop the sketchpad on my thighs, lazily drawing. I know Caulter is in his room, because I heard the door close, and I find myself wondering what he's doing. I have to force my mind to focus on something other than Caulter.
Anything but Caulter.
Like the picture I'm doing right now. Of Caulter's cock.
I tear the piece of paper off the pad, crumple it, and throw it across the room. Screw Caulter. And screw the stupid stuff he said about me.
I close my eyes, and bring up my mother's image in my head, beginning to sketch her from memory. But my mind is in a different place. I have the nagging feeling that Caulter is right -- that I am just too much of a coward to stand up to my father. It's why I haven't told him about UCLA.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Caulter
"What the fuck are you doing?" Katherine is running across the lawn, waving her hands at me like a complete fucking lunatic.
A hot fucking lunatic.
Her brown hair bounces over her shoulders as she runs, trying futilely to pull her skirt down over her ass. "Are you insane?"
"Insane? Nope. I'm roasting marshmallows." I pull the marshmallow off the stick and pop the warm gooey goodness into my mouth. She looks at me, her chest rising as she catches her breath, her cheeks flushed. It's the same way she looks when she's just had an orgasm.
I haven't made her come all week. She hasn't let me, not since the fight we had in the library after we screwed on the ladder.
What I should have done after that was go out and find a replacement Katherine. But what I'm finding, much to my irritation, is that Katherine seems to be crawling under my skin. Like a disease.
So I'm taking the mature road and talking to her about things like an adult. While eating marshmallows. "Want one?" I ask.
"You can't light a fire out here -- there are regulations, you idiot," she yells. "Who fucking gets a -- where did you even get a barrel, anyway? And what the hell are you -- Oh. My. God. Those are my clothes in there. My pants. My underwear!"
I lied -- I'm not taking the mature road here. At all. This might be one of the most juvenile things I've ever done.
I grin and shrug. "I told you I wanted you in skirts. No panties."
She grabs the stick from my hands, poking it into the barrel. Flames shoot up, sending sparks flying in every direction. Grabbing her by the arms, I pull her back against my chest.
Which is exactly where she belongs, I can't help but think as soon as her body touches mine.
But she only rest there momentarily before she yanks herself away from me. "What are you, some kind of psychopath?" she asks. "Who lights someone's clothes on fire? Something is seriously wrong with you."