Page 25 of Twisting Beauty

Lorcan slid across in one smooth movement, caging me against the door. His thigh pressed along the length of mine. One arm braced behind my head while he reached past me with the other, his arm dragging over mine with deliberate slowness.

A fever moved through me at once, low and sickeningly eager, and shame followed so fast it made my grip tighten uselessly on the handle.

I twisted toward him, more flustered than I wanted him to see. “What the hell are you doing?”

For a moment he just stared at me.

The lock clicked open beneath his fingers.

His mouth tipped at one corner, a mean smirk. He might as well have laughed in my face.

Heat flooded my cheeks. I shoved the door open, grabbing my things from my feet, and climbed out, almost catching my foot on the curb in my rush to get away from him.

Lorcan climbed out after me, somehow making the movement seem graceful despite his size.

Eyes turned toward us from across the front lawn, widening first at the sight of Lorcan like he was something worth admiring, then sharpening on me with a hostility that felt almost eager.

Lorcan barged past me, his shoulder slamming into mine hard enough to knock me sideways.

My bag slipped off my arm. Books spilled. The clasp gaped open and half of Rua’s life scattered across the pavement. A pair of black lace underwear landed near someone’s shoe. A bottle of antidepressants skidded across the stone. Tampons rolled out at all angles, one falling into a drain.

Low laughter broke out somewhere nearby. I couldn’t tell whether it was aimed at me or whether my own nerves were tricking me. My cheeks flared hot anyway.

Lorcan, the bastard, didn’t even bother looking back. No apology. No acknowledgement of the humiliation he’d engineered. He just walked away like I meant nothing.

I held back a scream and started gathering Rua’s things as quickly as I could, shoving the underwear, the pill bottle, and the tampons back into the bag with hands that suddenly felt thick and clumsy.

One of the boys from a nearby group broke away and came toward me.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, although not as broad or as tall as Lorcan, and I hated myself instantly for the comparison.

His floppy flaxen hair had probably taken effort to make look careless. He wore expensive trainers, designer clothes, and a smug little grin. He did not so much walk as swagger to me.

Elias Montgomery.

Rua’s memories handed him to me at once, but so did my own mind. He was one of the students who had broken into Magdalene.

I tried to separate the reactions, to sort hers from mine, but the unease had already blurred into one response.

He bent, picked up a paintbrush had rolled farther than the rest, and straightened without offering it back. He held it up and waggled it, making me go to him.

I felt the weight of his friends staring at me while other students slowed down as they passed so they, too, could watch.

I reached out for the paintbrush but he held it out of my reach.

His gaze crawled over my body without shame, lingering where Rua’s clothes fit differently. “Damn, Rua. Bulgaria was good to you.”

He dragged the end of the paintbrush along the curve of my waist as if he had every right to touch what had changed.

I stepped back from the paintbrush before he could touch me with it again.

“Romania,” I snapped.

“Whatever.” He kept the paintbrush dangling between us. His grin widened. “So, whatcha doing later?”

I snatched the paintbrush from his fingers hard enough that the bristles bent, jammed it back into the bag with the rest of Rua’s things, and held my books against my chest like armor.

“Avoiding you,” I said, then turned before he could answer.