She probably thought the not-so-prince Landon would be able to satisfy her kink and they would ride off into the sunset on his black horse.
“You weren’t so embarrassed when you all but threw yourself at Landon.”
“Lan is different,” she whispers.
“Different.” My voice must convey the dark demons swirling around in my head, because her wide gaze flits back to me. “Different how?”
“Just…different.” Careful apprehension coats her tone. No attempts to soften it or hide a lie.
“You just saw him fucking another girl and you still think he’s different?”
“I knew about that.” She lifts a shoulder. “I know a lot of things about him, and his darkness. I know his preferred methods to purge and his twisted relationship with art and his family. I don’t like him because I have rosy misconceptions about him. I like him because he’s different.”
Different.
Again.
I tug on her hair and throw her off me.
She stumbles but catches herself before she falls to the ground.
“W-what’s wrong with you now?” She watches me with that caution again. As she should.
I’m two seconds away from bashing her head in, and I have to remind myself that I can’t do that.
Unless I’m in the mood to see her brain.
Which isn’t a bad idea, after all. I should see what the fuck is going on in her dysfunctional mind to cause her to harbor thoughts like that.
With one last glare in her direction, I stand up. “We’re leaving.”
She wants different?
I’ll show her what different actually means.
10
CECILY
Jeremy disappeared.
Not completely. Just from my life.
It’s been two weeks since he took me to the club and kissed me with an insatiable hunger. Two weeks and my lips still tingle in remembrance of his forceful hands and punishing mouth.
After he dropped me home that night, he hasn’t shown himself around me.
There’s no more stalking, no more unsolicited sliding into my peripheral vision and following me back to the flat.
Nothing.
At first, I thought it was because of all the events happening on both campuses, especially the rivalry between the Heathens and the Serpents.
He’s the leader, after all, and these types of events would be on the forefront of his mind.
However, that didn’t stop him before. No matter what type of fuckery was going on, Jeremy managed to continuously transform into my shadow and haunt my days and nights.
Especially my nights.
I stare out my window at the gloomy darkness outside, rolling my pen between my fingers.
My attention has long since become scattered, blown by the wind and shattered by the edge of daydreaming. My academics have suffered the most, no matter how much I push myself into my ‘nerd’ zone, as my friends call it.
Straightening in my rotating chair, I slap my cheeks and return my focus to the project I’m supposed to be making.
Five minutes is all it takes before the words on the screen of my laptop blur into intelligible chaos.
Images of that day rush back into my mind. Punishing lips, merciless hands, unforgiving eyes.
I thought it was a dream, but I obviously zoned out and it was for longer than usual since my brain had the capacity to turn the event into a dream.
Not a nightmare. A dream.
My fingers ghost over my lips and touch them tentatively. A zap slashes through my body, and usually, I’d drop my hand as if I’d been caught stealing from a biscuit jar.
Now, I don’t.
This time, I close my eyes and picture his lips, unapologetic and controlling. I had no choice but to let him ravage, suck, lick.
It was a stolen moment that I couldn’t have put an end to.
I hate myself for reliving it over and over again. For picturing his big hand around my waist and the other trapping my cheek.
For still having the distinctive feeling of his erection rubbing against my backside.
But what I hate the most is wondering about why he left and never came back.
It’s not that I want him back.
I was relieved the first few days he wasn’t around to keep an eye on me.
Jeremy is a dangerous man, the worst enigma, and a devil with distorted morals and a cutthroat personality. He’s absolutely not someone I want to mingle with, so, yeah, I was glad he got over whatever stalker kink he had.
But that relief soon morphed into something more nefarious.
Unsettling curiosity.
I keep replaying what happened after he kissed me, poured vodka down my throat, then drank it off me.
He looked mad before he abruptly announced we were leaving. No, not mad. Possibly annoyed?
I really can’t be sure, considering his never-changing angry expression, so I have no clue if he looked that way by default or due to something I did.
I open my eyes, groan softly, then fish out my phone and open Instagram. I realize I’m letting him get under my skin, but I can’t help it.
Jeremy has an account, but he seldom posts on it, and most of his pictures are blurred and unintelligible. A mass of black and white and mysterious.
A day ago, I scrolled through all of his posts twice. This is the third time.
What? I need to know the enemy.
Though is he really an enemy if he’s actually left you alone?
I ignore that voice and start at the top.
Jeremyvolkov. That’s what his account is called. He doesn’t have a bio or anything.
His profile picture is a black and white side shot of him on his bike, wearing a leather jacket. From this angle, his hair flopped by the wind, his square jaw appears ready to cut someone in half.
In most of the pictures, he’s on the bike, with Nikolai, who’s usually half naked on his own bike, or with the other guys. There are no family pictures. Not even any with Annika.
She, however, posts religiously, and some of them do include Jeremy. He’s an unwilling participant in all of them since she usually catches him in the background.
My favorite picture of them is one she posted a few weeks back. It’s from when she was young, maybe about four years old while Jeremy is no older than ten. She was laughing through her tears while he wiped them. Her caption was even more heartwarming.
Do I have the best brother ever? Yes, yes, I totally do. Thank you for being my anchor, Jer purple hearts
But even Annika doesn’t have a full family picture. The closest one to a family photo is one of her hugging her mum, with Jeremy standing behind them.
She captioned it: My favorite people.
There’s no trace of their father and I guess that makes sense, considering his leadership position in the mafia.
After scrolling through Jeremy’s profile for longer than needed, I groan and hit the home screen.
What the hell am I doing?
The first post that appears is of Landon kissing a statue on the mouth.
landon-king: If you know what agalmatophilia means, be mine?
I know Lan has been a highly sexualized person since we were teens. He’s had weird sexual adventures, which is different from, say, his twin, Bran.
He’s on the same level as Remi, but not really. Remington genuinely loves chasing after skirt, a playboy through and through.