Page 27 of Paper Thin Love

Did someone here take more from her? Instead of asking, I tried to push her away.“Life isn’t fair, Mila,” I snap angrily, swatting away her branch of kindness.

She blinks and looks me in the eye.“I didn’t say it was.”

I adjust the crutch, pushing it further under my arm. My armpit is starting to really hurt, but I’ll just add it to the list of pain I have to hide from others.“If the girls want to sleep around, then they should. You want something?” I raise a brow.“Sometimes you have to take it.”

“It’s not that easy.”

I step closer, toe to toe with her. The scent of her perfume infiltrates my senses; it’s sweet, like orange blossoms. My cock twitches.

“Nothing worth taking ever is, or it wouldn’t be worth the risk, now would it?”

Why do I want to kiss her again?To taste her shock, fear, and excitement.

Kissing her was like tasting sin. She didn’t want to give in, butshe did, and that made me want her.

It was a dangerous taste. I shouldn’t allow it on my tastebuds again.

I’ve kissed other chicks before, butnone tasted like Mila. None made me want to give in to my feral side.

I have to draw a line. Useher,butnotthatway. I watched my parents have a marriage born out of desire that turned into love. Mom and Dad... their love for each other was, well, you can’t put it into words. I wanted that kind of love. I wanted a partner like my dad had.

I did. Until I watched what losing a love that powerful could do to a man.

Now, Iwant nothing but an escape. Mila isn’t that. Kissing her didn’t stop me from thinking. Itmade my mind go into overdrive.

Like I told my cousins, love from a King kills. My cousin Titan,well,he fell in love once. He thought he could save a girl named Elsa from his father. He failed, andI watched a piece of my cousin die the day Elsa did. I can’t afford to have any more of me die.

Mom’s death already took too much.

I lift my crutch and nod for us to continue walking.“Who do you want?” I need to find out. I want to push Mila. Provoke her to sleep with them so I can be disgusted and not think about kissing her again.

She snorts.“What makes you think I want someone?”

She picks up her pace slightly. Because of my leg, she’s been walking slower than she needs to. That’s good; I don’t want to walk slow; it makes me look weak.

“You’re jealous of the guys here because they have freedom.”

“Exactly,” she replies.“I want what the guys have. Not women, not sex, not power. I want freedom.”

“It takes a tremendous amount of power to maintain freedom, Mila. You can’t have one without the other. You need both, Mila.”

Her face falls like the water at Niagara Falls, hopes and dreams endlessly crashing over the edge until she loses energy, her fighting current; soon, she will be nothing more than droplets forced to be stuck together and used by others.“You’re wrong, " she whispers with hope desperately clinging to the tip of her tongue.

I shake my head. I just crushed a tiny piece of her. Tainted it. She knows I’m right. She needs power to be free.

“Have you tried to run before?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She stops again, this time jutting her slender hip out slightly.“Because I’m not a fucking fool, Dash King. When I am free, it won’t be short-lived. You owe me a favor, after all.” She slowly grins as if she has a trick up her sleeve.

Giving Mila freedom is an easy favor to fulfill. If she were wiser, she would ask for something only I could give her. Something rare and valuable that she could extort.

We walk a few more paces. I flex my back muscles, trying to shake off the pricking sensation of all the eyes digging into my back. Watching and waiting to see what I will do. I have two days before class starts to learn about my surroundings.

A group of men can be seen jogging in the distance before they eventually divert into the woods, where the trail becomes narrower. It’s like watching a pack of lions rush into camouflage. Before they totally disappear, the last guy looks over his shoulder at me as if he’s sizing me up.

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