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“You keep saying that, but I know my worth,” she hissed through gritted teeth. Her chest rose and fell sharply, her eyes darkening as her anger overtook her fear.
I leaned forwards. My mouth went to her neck, inhaling the scent of caramel apples, then moved up to her ear, and she stiffened beneath me.
“Shut up.” Bringing my hand to her neck, I wrapped my fingers around her throat, feeling her pulse thumping wildly.
Her soft gasp as I gripped her made me smile, but she soon recovered.
“Go on, squeeze.” She taunted me with her words. “Does it make you feel good to know you can choke me? Leave bruises on my skin? Overpower me just because you’re bigger than me?”
“Raine…” My grip tightened.
“Do it.”
Those two words snapped the final thread of my control.
16
His lips crashed down on mine.
No.
No, no, no.
I shoved at him, scraping uselessly at his chest through his T-shirt. Tearing his mouth away, he released his grip on my throat and grabbed my wrists, pulling them away from him and managing to twist my left wrist in the process. I cried out at the sudden pain and lunged forwards, pulling his lip into my mouth and biting down as hard as I could.
“You fucking—” he shouted, finally releasing me, his hand flying to his lip.
“Can’t handle a bit of blood?” Where all this newfound confidence was coming from, I didn’t know. It had taken him pushing me over the edge by framing me with the theft to do it. I held on to it with both hands.
He stood, towering over me, blood dripping from his lip and running down his chin, as I cradled my wrist, both of us angry and unwilling to back down. Time crawled to a halt as we stared at one another, neither of us wanting to be the first to break the connection.
Hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor, and Carter’s eyes widened. For once we were on exactly the same page.
“Bathroom!” I hissed urgently, and he nodded, diving for his bathroom door and slamming it shut behind him. I fell into his desk chair, yanking open the lid of his laptop and pressing a button to wake up the screen.
“Everything okay? I heard a shout.” Carter’s dad poked his head around the door, peering suspiciously around the room.
Clearing my throat, I placed my hands in my lap so he wouldn’t see them shake. “Everything’s fine, Mr. Blackthorne. Carter stubbed his toe. He’s in the bathroom. Would you like me to pass on a message?” I couldn’t meet his eyes.
“No, no, that’s fine. Thank you, sweetheart. His voice grew soft. “Thank you for doing this for him. I hope that you will be a good influence on him.”
“I’ll try,” I managed. My throat was so dry all of a sudden.
“Good. Well, I’ll leave you to it.” He backed away and left the room, closing the door behind him. I collapsed back in the chair, before springing to my feet. Now I wasn’t hypnotised by Carter’s eyes, I needed to check if he was okay. Why, I couldn’t say.
Holding my breat
h, I knocked on the door of the bathroom but didn’t wait for a reply before I entered the small en suite room, decorated in white tiles with black accents. Carter stood at the sink, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror briefly before he turned his gaze away. Taking a step closer, I saw that his lip was still bleeding, although he’d wiped away the blood on his chin.
Without taking another second to think about it, I ripped off a couple of pieces of toilet paper from the roll on the wall, folded them into a square, and dashed the square under the tap to dampen it slightly. I hopped up on the counter next to him, and when he remained staring straight ahead, I grasped his chin. “Let me…” Reaching out, I pressed the makeshift compress to his lip. He growled under his breath but let me touch him. “You need to move closer.” Frustrated, I pulled at his jaw, and I thought I saw a hint of a smile appear, before it vanished. He moved closer, though. In fact, too close. Standing to the side of me, but his hard thigh was pressed against my leg, and his nearness made my heart race. Now he wasn’t looking at me like he hated me, the feelings that I’d been suppressing returned in full force.
I sucked in an unsteady breath. “I think…um…just hold it on yourself.” Hopping off the counter, I barged my way over to the sink. My wrist was starting to throb a little now—not much, and in actual fact I didn’t think he’d even meant to twist it, but I didn’t want to risk it swelling or anything. I turned the tap on, holding my fingers under the water until it became icy cold, then placed my wrist under it with a sigh of relief.
“Did I hurt you?” I’d been so engrossed in my wrist that I hadn’t even noticed Carter move, and now he was behind me, peering over my shoulder. He was still holding the tissue on his lip, but his other arm came around me, and he gently cradled my wrist under the running water. His touch set all my nerve endings alight, and I couldn’t help pressing back just the tiniest bit, my back up against his hard body.
“Not really,” I whispered, not wanting to ruin this moment with a return to animosity.
“I didn’t mean to.” I felt him swallow hard against me, and then he was speaking again, his voice so low that I had to strain to hear it. “I go so fucking crazy around you, Raine. You’re no good for me. I don’t trust myself when I’m around you.” His voice grew even lower. “I don’t like who I am around you.”
