Filthy English (35 page)

“You like this song?” He stared at me, eyes searching my hidden face.

“Yes.”

A silence fell between us, thick and heavy. I got antsy.

So did he, judging by the way his chest rose up and down. A muscle flexed in his cheek, and I sensed he was barely keeping control—

He broke character. “Are you going to give in?” Dax finally growled, a tinge of authority in his tone.

“No,” I managed to say, even though I wanted to fall to my knees for him.

“You want me to dance with someone else?”

“You won’t,” I said softly.

“Fuck. You’re right.”

I pretended to ignore him, pouring myself another drink and shooting it back—all while he watched with a hungry, vulnerable look in his eyes.

One that I recognized well.

He was on the edge. Teetering.

So was I—but I held on, doing what any good player would do who was involved in a bet for a quid.

Would he kiss me first? Or would I kiss him?

Yes, he’d told me all about Spider’s bet, and tonight we’d made up our own version.

“Stand up,” he said.

“Please?”

He sighed. “Please.”

I stood and we faced off at the bar. A few patrons noticed the tenseness between us, their eyes bouncing to us and then away.

I put the strand of pearls in my mouth, and moved them over my teeth, my tongue dipping out to taste them. “Too bad this isn’t your mouth.”

He groaned, his hips moving forward and pressing me into the bar. I should have felt claustrophobic with the bar behind me, him in front, and all the people watching, but I didn’t.

This was him. This was me. This is what we liked.

“You’re trying to kill me here,” he said, his voice ragged, his lips perilously close to mine.

I snaked my hand around his neck and pulled his head down until our foreheads were touching. “You kiss me first and let me win the bet, and I promise to dance with you to our song.”

He hesitated. “Can we dance like we did last time?”

I bit my lip and smiled. “Maybe.”

“You little minx,” he whispered. “You win.” He took my mouth slowly as if we had all the time in the world, as if there weren’t tons of people watching. I got lost in him, like I always did.

“I love you,” he said in my ear when we pulled apart.

I melted even more into him, my hands clinging to his shoulders. “I love you, too.”

He took a step back and pulled me out to the dance floor. Once we got there, I saw that Declan and Elizabeth had apparently found each other in the time Dax had found me. They were already dancing, their arms tight around each other. I waved at them, but they didn’t notice, too caught up in each other.

Dax pulled me to his chest and touched my face, almost reverently. “Almost a year ago—you fell in my lap. I can’t imagine one day without you.”

I smiled up at him with absolute certainty.

Romeo and Juliet may have been star-crossed lovers, but we were not.

“We have forever,” I said as he kissed me.

Really The End

Turn the page to read the first few chapters of the Wall Street Journal best-selling book
DIRTY ENGLISH.

A stabbing pain in my temple.

Fat and swollen lips.

A throbbing tenderness between my thighs.

Why did I feel like I was dying?

Muddled images flashed in my head, but nothing connected or made sense, just a big black hole of nothingness. Thanks, vodka.

The ache seemed to spread across my face. I groaned.
Had something hit me?

Nausea curled as I got my bearings in the dark. Bit by bit, I figured out I was sprawled cross-wise on a bed that wasn’t mine.

A small hotel room came into focus.

Careful to move my head slowly, I gazed around, taking in the battered nightstand and a rickety desk that had seen better days. In the corner of the room lay the beaded clutch purse I’d borrowed from my best friend Shelley for prom. Okay.
But where was she?

My last memory was dancing in the gym. Maybe on top of a table?

My eyes went around the room.

Threadbare navy curtains.

A bed that reeked of stale cigarettes and body odor.

A bottle of Grey Goose.

My stomach lurched at the memory of that bitter taste sliding down my throat, and I swallowed to keep the bile down.

Was this a hangover?

I didn’t know. I had nothing to compare it to.

Snippets of the night came in vivid clips.

Dinner with my boyfriend, Colby, and my friends Shelley and Blake at an Italian restaurant in downtown Petal, North Carolina. Lots of giggling. Colby sneaking in his flask so we could spike our drinks. Dancing under twinkling lights at the prom in the Oakmont Prep gymnasium. Getting in Colby’s Porsche to head to the lake for an after-hours party.

No memories of the lake came to me.

Colby, though, I remembered him urging me to drink, pushing the bottle at my mouth on the way to prom and then later as we drove to the lake.
Don’t be a pussy, Elizabeth. Drink it. Let’s rule the world, babe.

Rule the world
was his thing. He was invincible, and I guess since his father was a Senator of North Carolina, he believed it. Being part of his inner circle, especially being his new girlfriend, made me feel like I was freaking royalty.

My tummy still fluttered from winning prom queen to his king. On stage when they’d set the sparkling crowns on our heads, he’d turned to me and told me he loved me. Crazy and giddy happiness had filled my heart. He loved
me
. The girl from the wrong side of town. The girl without a real family. The girl who was nobody.

I’d waited for someone to love me like that my whole life.

More flashes from the car came and I groaned.

I remembered the second sip. Third. Fourth.

Things got hazy.

God, I couldn’t remember.

Colby giving me a little white pill.

Did I take it?

It was all so fuzzy.

Pink, sparkly sequins dotted my hands and I gazed down at them on the bed. My dress—the one I’d scrimped and saved to get by waiting tables at the local diner—lay in scattered pieces around me. My body was on display with my breasts hanging out.

I whimpered and tried to cover them, but my arms were too sluggish. Panic ate at me—and then an awful realization hit. The material had been ripped from bust to hem, the delicate spaghetti straps torn off. My underwear lay twisted around my ankles and spots of blood dotted the coverlet below me.

For a millisecond my brain refused to accept what was plain as day, but when reality finally settled in, horror pooled in my gut.

My hands attempted to move but only fluttered around my body.

Red marks. Bruises. Scratches. Teeth marks.

No. No. No. This was all wrong. This wasn’t supposed to happen tonight.

Whispers came from a corner of the room. Colby.

My eyes found him standing shirtless in the bathroom, his back to me as he talked on the phone.

Pieces of his conversation came to me.

“She’s out of it, man . . . like an animal in the sack . . . popped that cherry . . .”

His words hit me like a tsunami, and my breath snagged in my throat. I struggled to regain my equilibrium—to focus—lying to myself that this whole episode was a figment of my imagination.

Colby grunted. “I don’t think she’ll be able to walk for a week.” A pause, and then he burst out laughing at something the other person must have said.

Something fragile inside me cracked and split wide open.

A sound tore from my throat, low and primitive, and his eyes swiveled to me.

I flinched, every muscle in my body jerking in revulsion.

“Gotta go.” He hung up and stalked toward me, stopping at the edge of the bed to stare down at me with ice-blue eyes. A flash of annoyance crossed his face as his gaze skated across my body. “You made a mess.”

Being from the trailer park, I’d had more than my share of scuffles with boys who wanted my attention and girls who wanted to boss me around, so I knew how to kick ass. Right then every nerve ending in my body wanted to jump up and claw his heart out piece by piece with my nails. He’d done this to me.

Rage burned inside, but I couldn’t move.

My voice came out thin. Reedy. “You hurt me.”

I struggled to sit up but collapsed backward.

He watched me dispassionately as I flailed around on the bed, letting the moments tick by, escalating my fear.

My tongue dipped out to lick dry lips.

He scooped up his white dress shirt from the floor, careful and steady hands buttoning it up, and that gesture, it said everything. He pulled on his pants and checked his sandy hair in the mirror. He wasn’t drunk at all.

“What did you give me?” I pushed out. “Why?”

“Don’t play games, sweetheart, you begged for it.
This
was consensual.” He twirled his fingers around the bed, a look of derision on his face. “Whatever I gave you, you took it without asking.”

“No, that’s not true.”
Had I?

“Oh yeah, and you were the best lay I’ve had in months. Well worth the time I spent on you.” He bent down until his eyes were level with mine. “Don’t be telling lies about what happened here. No one would believe you anyway as drunk as you were. Still are. I’m sure there’re photos and videos from the prom to prove it.” He laughed as if hit by a sudden memory. “Damn girl, you were crazy in the gym, dancing on the tables and yelling at people. Chaperones tossed us out, babe. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a bad influence on me.” He cocked his head. “That’s what I’ll tell everyone at least.” He brushed at some lint on his trousers.

I shook my head.
No
. I was the good girl who’d scored the highest in her class on the SAT. I was the girl who volunteered at the local animal shelter—and not just for service hours. I didn’t get thrown out of parties. I barely got invited to them.

He pushed hair out of my face, his fingers trailing down my cheek.

I flinched and jerked away as far as I could. “Don’t touch me.”

“Ah, and here I was hoping you’d be ready for another round.” He chuckled, his hands fiddling with the ring I’d made for him a few weeks ago, a sterling silver band with our initials etched on the inside with a heart between them. I’d spent hours on it, engraving the letters and then fashioning the metal until it was perfect. I’d even used some of my college savings to buy the butane torch and tools necessary to make it good enough for him.

“You said you loved me.” I hated the weakness in my voice.

His lips quirked up. “I tell all the girls I love them, Elizabeth. You just took a little longer to give me what I wanted.”

A strangled noise came out of my mouth.

He sighed and zipped his pants. “Don’t be upset. We both wanted this.”

No, no, no.

He twisted his ring off and twirled it between his fingers. “I guess you’ll be wanting this back now.” He tossed it on the nightstand and it made a tinkling sound as it hit the wood, spun off, and fell onto the floor.

He checked his appearance in the mirror one last time to straighten his jacket. “Well, I have to go, but I’ll see you at graduation in a few days. Later, babe.”

And then he walked out the door, shutting it softly behind him.

Thank God
.

I sucked in a shuddering breath, my lungs grasping for more air.

To make sense of what had happened.

An hour went by. Another one.

Memories flashed like a horror movie you didn’t want to watch but couldn’t stop. Colby carrying me in the hotel and placing me on the bed. Ripping my dress. Groping at my legs. Hitting. Shoving.
Pain.

I’d tried to say no, but the words hadn’t come.

I’d tried to move, but I couldn’t.

My body had been a frozen statue, and he’d moved me where he wanted. Twisted me. Ruined me.

I held myself together and watched the minutes tick by on the digital clock as my alcohol-soaked brain struggled to make my body move again. In tiny increments, I slid my legs down until they touched the floor, my toes clenching into the cheap, fuzzy carpet. Groaning, I forced myself to sit up and then immediately fell. I crawled until I got to my purse in the corner of the room and found my phone.