Threat (4 page)

My eyes narrow. “You
followed
me home, didn't you? What
the hell is wrong with you?”

“No I didn't follow you home. Have you forgotten I live here
now?”

“No, you don't. Your mother hasn't even moved in yet! You
literally have seconds to get the fuck out or I'll have the cops haul
your ass back to prison!”

“Okay, first, it was juvi. And secondly, you can't exactly get
someone arrested when they have a key,” he says. And out of his
hand drops a little gold house key, exactly like mine, which he
annoyingly dangles just inches from my face.

This is like a nightmare within a nightmare. It's nightmare-ception.

“No. No!” I shout as I turn and run up stairs. I grab my
purse from the floor when I make it to my room and shove my hand
inside, shuffling through all the random crap to fish out my phone.
Before I can even call my dad to complain I see his text message,
loud and clear across the screen.

meant to tell u Janet gave her key to David

so he can stop by and get situated this weekend

hope that's OK?!

No. It's totally not okay.

I crash down on my bed, not caring that I'm soaking through my
comforter. I read the words over and over again and wonder if this is
my real life. Just a few days ago, I was graduating at the top of my
high school class. I was on my way to the most prestigious school on
the West Coast with a 4.2 GPA under my belt. Life was good—no,
it was great. And now, I have to deal with this shit. My childhood
bully is back from the fucking dead and invading my space.

I guess there's no point in calling dad, since he seems to think
there's nothing wrong with me shacking up with a twenty-year-old
tattooed ex-con for the week.

I'm on my own here and I'll have to deal with Threat and whatever he
has planned for me. Is it really that bad, or am I just making it
worse in my head?

I'm pulled out of my reverie by a knock on the door. When I look up I
see Threat leaning casually against my door frame. “So wanna
give me the royal tour?” he asks, smacking on his gum.

Speak of the devil.

I glare at him from the edge of the bed. “Will you leave
afterward if I do?”

He shakes his head. “I'm here for the week. Sorry, pookie.”

That's what I was afraid he'd say.

I fake a yawn. “I'm suddenly feeling kind of tired.”

He points a finger gun at me and says, “I'll take you up on
that in the morning then.”

And I point one right back at him. “Don't count on it.”

He grins as he starts past my door. “Goodnight, sis,” he
yells from down the hall.

I fall back against my bed, grab a pillow, practically smother myself
with it while I scream. Sis? Now he's calling me sis? The last thing
I want is to be reminded that he and I are now step siblings. Do I
have any control over this at all? Who did I piss off in a past life
to deserve this?

I throw the pillow off of me, taking a deep breath as I stare back up
at the
ceiling
.
This is exactly what he wants, isn't it? To invade my space and annoy
the hell out of me. To leave my life in disarray. And so far, it's
worked. Nope, I'm not letting Threat harsh my mellow. I am
not
letting him ruin the last summer I spend at home. He can mess with me
as much as he wants, but I'm not letting him get under my skin
anymore.

Besides, that Jacuzzi is still calling to me. And I left my e-reader
down there, dammit.

I head out of my room and shuffle down the stairs. When I get outside
the first thing I see is David sitting in the fucking hot tub
guzzling down my bottle of wine—he's not even using a glass!
And worse yet, he has my e-reader in his hand. I'm pretty sure my
face turns beet red as I sprint across the backyard toward him.

“No!” I holler as I rush him.

He looks up at me from over the Kindle. “Oh hey sis, did you
come to join me?”

“Put that down!” I shout, reaching to grab it from his
hand, but he snatches it away from me, raising it high above my head.

“
The Captive Prince,”
he says out loud, reading
the title on my kindle. “You are into some kinky shit. You know
this book is about two dudes, right?”

I groan loudly as I climb up on the edge of the tub, reaching for my
e-reader, but he's too damn tall and keeps it just inches out of my
grasp.

“Stop! That's fucking private!”

“I mean, there's nothing wrong with that—not my thing, I
prefer pussy, obviously—but you just never struck me as the
type!”

God, he is so damn crude! I climb into the tub against my better
judgment and grab hold of his bicep, which is about the equivalent of
grabbing on to a tree stump. Even using all of my weight, it doesn't
fucking budge.

“Seriously, let it go now! That doesn't fucking belong to you?”

“You want it? Okay, catch,” he says and opens his hand.

I watch in horror as it hits the water with a splash and sinks right
to the bottom.

“Well you said to let it go.”

It takes all my might not to slap the stupid grin right off of his
stupid face.

I scoop my poor Kindle out of the water and scurry out of the hot
tub. The screen is glitchy and full of static each time I click the
on button, until it doesn't turn on again at all.

“Hey, that was an accident, I swear,” Threat says as he
makes his way toward me.

“Like hell it was,” I holler, chucking the useless hunk
of plastic in his general direction. Unfortunately, he ducks and I
miss.

“Shit man, you're really mad about this aren't you?” he
says.

“Are you for real? Do you really think I'd be a-OK with you
purposely breaking my things.?”

“It was an
accident
, shit. Get off my jock about it.”

My eyes narrow and I sneer at him. “You dropped it in a pool of
water and now you call it an accident? You had no right or no
business to fucking touch it to begin with!”

He rolls his eyes. “God, just buy another one! Those things are
like, what, $80 bucks? That's nothing to rich-ass kids like you.”

I bury my hands in my hair and I'm seconds away from ripping it all
out. I'm starting to wonder if he was raised by wolves. It's not even
about the money, it's about respect—how does he not understand
that? Oh right, because he irrationally hates me and will do anything
just to get a rise out of me. And so far, he's succeeding.

I simply glower at him, bottling up all of my anger, despite the fact
that I feel like I'm going to explode with it. I'm just too damn
drained, mentally and physically, to put up with him any more
tonight.

In a huff, I turn and head to the house. But like clockwork, this
asshole follows, reaches from behind me and holds the sliding door
shut.

“Would you
please
move
?
”
I grit my teeth at him.

“No, because you seem angry. And something tells me it's not
just about your wank material.”

He's pushing it. This isn’t going to end well.

I spin around to face him, finding myself trapped between the wall
and his half naked, soaking wet body. I was too pissed off to notice
it before but now I can't miss it, especially with golden light from
the porch lamp illuminating every single ripple in his abs.
Jesus
,
he has the body of a Greek statue—how is that even humanly
possible?

With his hands on either side of me caging me in, he stares down at
me, a smile playing on the corner of his lips. It's like he's
taunting me without saying a word.

“I'd really suggest you move and let me go now,” I say as
calmly as possible.

“Now you see, that isn't healthy, holding everything in like
that. Go ahead and tell me how you're feeling.”

Seriously? Isn’t that kind of obvious right now? “I'm
feeling angry and upset that you're going out of your way to harass
me!” I break through his hold and reach for the door. “I'm
going upstairs, to my room. Don't fucking follow me or bother me for
the rest of the week.”

He chuckles. “Typical. Just like a little hermit crab.”

I freeze and shut my eyes tight. Hearing him call me that name is
like a trigger that brings back violent memories from High School.

No, Leah. Don't let him get under your skin again. Don't let him
get in your head.

“God, I feel sorry for you,” I say.

He blinks rapidly, folding his arms over his chest like he's taken
aback my revelation. “
You
feel sorry for
me
?”

I shrug a shoulder. “Why wouldn't I?”

“Oh, I don't know, maybe because I have a life, and social
skills, and I'm not some uptight virgin living life vicariously
through brain dead romance novels.”

“Yeah? And you're also twenty years old, you still live at
home, you have a shitty dead-end job, and a rap sheet,” I spit
out.

His jaw clenches. “You don't have shit except for the stuff
your rich daddy gives you.”

I throw my head back and laugh bitterly. “Is my daddy the
reason why you couldn't even get a high school diploma? I'm going to
fucking
Stanford
. Where are you going? Oh right, you'll still
be here, while your mommy fixes you food and does your laundry.”

“You don't know shit about shit, Leah. This is exactly why
everyone hated you in high school.”

“Maybe no one sent you the memo, but high school is over. At
least I have a future—you'll probably stay in this shitty
little town with your worthless friends until you die.”

With narrowed eyes, he moves in closer to me. “You've got a lot
of nerve talking to someone like me like that.”

“True, I'll try and talk slower and use smaller words next
time,” I tell him dismissively. He stares me down but I don't
give a shit; I got under his skin for once, and it feels good. He
still has me trapped between those giant arms of his. “Move,”
I demand as I try to push past but he holds me back. He pushes me
hard up against the wall with his body, pinning me between his chest
and the rough brick behind me.

“You're pushing your God damned luck,” he snarls.

My body goes rigid and I have to gasp for air—what the hell? I
hate him, but I've never been
physically scared
of him until
now.

I let out a frantic yelp. “Get the fuck away from me!” My
hands are on his shoulders, pushing him, but he barely budges. And
then he takes me by the wrists and slams them back against the side
of the house. His chest expands against my completely immobile body.
I start to panic. Threat is a jerk and a bully, but he isn't
violent...is he? Unable to scream, I start to panic, but then he does
the last thing I expect.

He kisses me.

He fucking
kisses
me. His lips are everything he is—hard,
rough and violent upon mine. He even lets go of my wrist just so he
can latch his giant ass hand around my neck and pull me in closer to
him. As if we weren’t already close enough.

I know he's an asshole for doing it, but the worst part is it's
everything I've ever wanted in a kiss. And I hate myself for that.

The first chance I get I bite his lip and I bite it hard. When he
groans from the pain I shove him away from me.

“Fuck!” he hollers with his hand over his mouth. His
bottom lip is red and swollen but I didn't even break the skin.
Dammit.

“You deserve a hell of a lot worse than that.”

“Shouldn't you be thanking me? That's probably the most action
you've ever gotten!”

I stumble away from him and back into the house. “You stay the
fuck away from me. Don't touch me, don't talk to me, and don’t
come near me!” I slide the backdoor shut, locking it behind me.
As I dart off to my room, I glance back to see him banging on the
glass door and silently shouting what I'm sure are obscenities at me.
Now that is a beautiful sight.

When I get back in my room I slam the door hard behind me and crash
down on my bed. No, on second thought, I better lock it and push a
chair against it for extra reinforcement. Locking him out will only
slow him down—he'll find his way back in. Or he can sleep in
the pool for all I care.

I fall back on to my bed and shut my eyes. I need to unwind majorly.
I need my books and I need my wine, and thinking about both just
makes me even more stressed. I grab my pillow, throw it over my face
again and scream into it for a good thirty seconds.

That just might have done the trick.

Or not.

The second I roll on to my side, shut my eyes and try to doze off I
start thinking about him. Hell, I can still feel him on my
kiss-swollen lips. I can smell his scent wafting in the air—that
woodsy, dark and surprisingly sweet cologne he wears. And I remember
good and well how his body felt pressed up against mine. Just
thinking about it makes something stir between my legs.

Oh God, what the hell is wrong with me? I swear he's jinxed me or put
some sort of voodoo hex on me. I've loathed him since sixth grade and
he hated me right back. He treated me like shit, targeted me for no
good reason. He made me the laughingstock of our middle school and
did the same to me again in high school, turning all the older boys
against me. It wreaked havoc on my non-existent dating life even
after he was gone. It wasn't until the latter half of senior year
that the other students started to ease off of me about it.

But after all of that, now he wants to kiss me? And even worse, I
like it?

This is so fucked up I can barely even process it.

I can't sleep and I can't do anything else because of the
distraction. It's only 9:45—I need to get the hell out of here.

I grab my phone and dial Mallory's number. It rings for what feels
like forever.

“Hey girl, what's up?”

I let out a sigh of relief that she's actually home. “Let's go
out. Like, now.”