Page 94 of Noxious Boys (Groveton College)

“That's okay,” King interrupts, stopping his brother with a hand to his shoulder, but he’s tilting my head back with his other, my neck arching to peer up at him. “Whatever you want, you’re in charge.”

It’s like looking up at a demonic sort of god, his beautiful face, his smooth skin, silver eyes. It’s like he shouldn't be real. His fingers loose around my throat, I swallow, I know I need to shove him off but I want him to never let me go.

“I have a study thing,” is what I say, shifting so they’ll release me, which they do, and I hate it.

The ease of it.

“You have Art Studies,” Rex replies as I push to my feet, nodding my head, dipping down to collect my scattered books, my computer that’s already in Rex’s hands, as he too comes to stand.

We’re eye to eye, our noses almost brushing and he doesn’t ask before his lips mould to mine.

Devastating me with his mouth, the way his tongue punches through my teeth, curling around my own. Owning me and ruining me and I kiss him back, with everything that I have. I kiss him back and I die a little more inside as I do, but I let him take his fill.

He pecks at my lips, breathing hard, kissing me lightly as he draws back to look at me. Scanning me with his beautiful green eyes, tight at the corners, a small smile curling his pink lips.

Pain.

I know it so well, I feel like I can see it in others so easily now, like I have some sort of detector. It’s why I don’t want a confrontation. They’re hurting too.

“Princess,” King rasps, his breath a slice of warm air down the back of my neck.

I turn from Rex, offering him a cracked smile, my nose blocked, my eyes hot, I feel uncomfortable, and I want to get out of here. Away from them.

Facing Raiden is like having my soul torn open, all of my nerve endings raw and exposed. Because he sees me. He reads me so well, even I’m unsure of what it is I’m feeling when he sees it. Untangles all of it and smooths it out with his mouth.

Thick, dusky rose pink lips connect with mine, soft, coaxing, such a contrast to my own cracked, dry, split skin. King kisses me like he did that night in his bed, like he’s trying to meld us together, not consume, just merge. Drag me into him as much as he pushes himself into me.

It’s a kiss that speaks of finality, but his version of it is different to mine. As he tangles his hands into my hair, breaks free of my lips and slides his tongue softly over my bruised skin. I shudder in his arms, my eyes sliding open, I peer over his head, Rex’s heat at my back, too close, too far. Like they both know they have only precious seconds left with me like this.

I don’t want to come between brothers.

Not these ones anyway.

“I have to go,” I whisper the words with a shudder, King drawing back, my hands very still at my sides.

Rex stops breathing at my back, I think King does too, it makes my head spin. I think the way I spoke the words came out differently to the way they sounded inside my head.

They know this is a goodbye.

But none of us address it as they release me, help me to take the stairs the rest of the way down without having to worry about tripping over my own feet, arms too full, eye too blurry, because they hold my stuff. My purple pen tucked behind Rex’s ear, books and computer stacked between them, secure in their large hands.

They pile me back up when we reach the art building, the pair of them walking either side of me the entire way. We don’t speak, the wind blows, the cold lashes my cheeks and it feels good against my bruises.

“Thank you,” I tell them both quietly, the wind whipping my words away, swallowing them in its own howl.

“Anytime,” King rasps, meaning something else entirely.

I can’t bring myself to look at Rex, silent at my back now, angled towards me, but my eyes can’t rove in his direction because I’ll see something in his eyes that devastates me, and this is for him.

I’m doing it for both of them as I tear my gaze from Raiden, make my way up the brick steps of the building, shoulder myway inside, clutching my books so hard each of my fingertips crack.

I hear a noise at my back before the door is closing all the way shut, Hendrix, some sort of choked wail escaping his lips.

But I’m doing this for him.

For them.

The five brothers who stole what was left of my heart.

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