Page 27 of Blinded By Love

She opens her door and lets me in before closing the door. I stand in her room and look around. It looks like a normal girls room. She has a small bookshelf against the wall, a tv right in front of her bed which is also against the wall, a desk on the left side of her room in front of the window, and then a dresser under the tv. She has only one picture on her dresser.

Jaclyn sits on her bed while I walk towards her dresser to look at the picture. It’s a picture of a baby and an older woman. I’m guessing the baby is Jaclyn and the older woman is a grandma, definitely not her mother. I look at her bookshelf and see she organized her bookshelf by color.

She has books like Darling Venom, Twisted Games, Broken Beauty, Haunting Adeline, and a whole bunch of other books.

I grab Broken Beauty and flip to a random page. Before I can even read a page the book gets taken out of my hand. I look at Jaclyn who puts the book back.

“I'd rather you not touch my things.” She gives me a tight lipped smile before moving to the bed. “You can sit at the desk. Did you bring your laptop or a notebook?” She looks away from her computer and looks at my hands which are in my pockets. “How do you expect to do the project if you don’t have anything?”

“I’m not worried,” I say before sitting at her desk. “You are really eager to finish this project,” I state before my eyes go to the desk. I notice a familiar white bandana. I pick it up and turn around to look at her. “I was wondering where this was.”

Jaclyn looks up from her laptop and her eyes go to the bandana in my hand. Her face turns a shade darker, blushing.

“I couldn’t find you that night and I was going to give it back to you.”

“Mhm,” I say, looking at the bandana, those memories of her lips and body on mine roll through my mind. Jaclyn is probably having the same memories because her face is still red and she is smiling softly. “Did you like the game?” I ask.

“It was interesting,” she answers, her eyes staring at mine intensely.

“Interesting,” I repeat in a snicker which earns me a glare from her.

Are we going to play the game where we just don’t acknowledge that we kissed each other until we couldn’t breathe?

We’re going to ignore this little back and forth game?

She’s in for a challenge then.

Sure, there is something about her that just rubs me the wrong way but I still promised to ruin her. And the best way to ruin any woman is faking everything. Bringing Jaclyn down will be one of the most pleasurable things because that heat and challenge in her eyes along the way will all be worth the hate she will have for me.

“Let’s just get this over with so you can go back to whatever it was that you were doing,” Jaclyn mumbles before looking back down at her computer.

Before coming here I wasn’t actually doing anything. I did go to the gym this morning and then went to a meeting with Marco before coming here. The rest of the day I’m free until later tonight because I have a fight. After that Marco needs me to run “errands” with him.

He’s fucking needy as fuck.

“Why do you read?” I ask, starting the conversation while leaning into her chair.

She looks up at me with those brown doe eyes that would probably make any guy fall to his knees for her.

When asked that question her eyes spark up and she looks almost excited to answer.

“I love reading. It makes me happy. I feel like with reading you can travel anywhere, fall in love with anyone, experience a sense of grief, or trauma, without actually having to go anywhere or actually go through that experience. For me, reading was always an escape because my mother was strict with me so I couldn’t really go out and do anything,” Jaclyn answers smoothly. It’s like she has been waiting to answer that question forever but never got the chance to. “Why do you fight?”

My muscles tighten. I don’t care if anyone knows why I like fighting or why I continue to put myself through that kind of pain but at the same time the whole reason why I started fighting is dark and filled with haunted memories that no one but Freddy, my mentor, knows.

“I like the adrenaline. I like the pain. There are a whole bunch of reasons why I like fighting. It’s not just one reason.”

Jaclyn’s eyes gloss over and she furrows her eyebrows. “You like pain?”

I blink and narrow my eyes. Jaclyn blinks too, still keeping her eyes on me. “Everyone likes a little pain. It makes them feel alive. Don’t you like pain?”

Jaclyn swallows and she looks down at her computer. “There is a part that everyone doesn’t like to share about themself. Why don’t you like to share that part with anyone?” She looks away from her computer and looks at me.

“It’s better if I keep people at a distance. I don’t share anything with anyone because I feel like it’s just better for them and for me if I keep them away.” She nods her head and nips her bottom lip making my eyes go down to her lips. Those same lips I had on mine not too long ago. She types a few things on her computer and looks up at me. I look away from her lips. “What about you?”

Jaclyn shrugs lightly. “I don’t like getting vulnerable with people. What’s the point if they are going to leave anyway? People don’t stay in your life forever.”

“You have trust issues.”