But Ajax had taken meexactlyhow he had. Down to the hand on my throat, my legs around his waist. It was the same, but different all at once. And I had come. Hard. I had erupted and smoldered. I saw stars.
My mind had gone completely blank, and the only conscious thought I had was of the extreme pleasure that he made me feel.
Then the fucking hickey. I had to cover it up with a scarf. Thank God it was winter, because no one noticed.
The Chow Hall with Kieran was awkward.
He kept asking, “What happened with coach? He didn’t read you the riot act, right? It wasn’t your fault!”
He was eating, and I was not. My thoughts made my stomach too unsettled to try to take in any food.
“It was fine.”
“What happened?” The last thing I wanted to talk about was whatever the fuck happened afterwards.
“Nothing. He just told me not to do it again.”
Thank God Kieran let it go. Whether he believed me, or if he had given up asking, was anyone’s guess. But I wasn’t in a position to care.
I had showered, but I swear, I could still smell the scent of cedar on my skin. His scent. I could smell it in the delicate skin on my inner wrist. As we sat in the Chow Hall in silence, I was absentmindedly running my nose against the skin trying to capture that essence. The hint of him and letting the comfort of it wash over me.
I didn’t understand it. I just knew that I needed it.
My absentmindedness kept me from noticing that danger lurked nearby. I didn’t realize that a school of sharks were fast approaching, and my cut lip was drawing them to me.
“You’ve changed your hair.” Keith’s voice greeted me and it spread angry goosebumps over my skin as the temperature in the room dropped to arctic levels. “I think I liked it better blonde.”
He was right. The mother fucker. He had made me hate my hair. My long, straight blonde hair that had been down to my waist was exactly what he had used against me. He’d pulled on my hair and taken me to the ground, before he choked me on the grass and did ungodly things to me.
I could never wear it longer than my ears because no one would ever do that to me again.
“Eoghan’s pulled you into his Guards,” he sneered. “I never took him to be that progressive.”
The men around him chuckled.
I reached beneath my scarf, to where the hickey was. I pressed on the tender skin. Somehow, it grounded me. It felt like he was there with me. And even if he was just using me –of course he was, don’t be stupid, Sin– I had the illusion that he was out there, possibly giving a shit about me. With him, Kieran, and Guile somewhere out in the world, maybe not all men were complete shit.
“Oh, don’t worry, love,” Keith called out to me. “That’ll be all over once you and I aremarried.” The men around him laughed some more. “I’ll keep you barefoot and pregnant, exactly the way you should be.”
A blush crawled up my cheeks to my neck. I hated him. I hated them all.
I wanted to flip the table and start walloping them, one at a time. But I knew that it was useless. There were too many of them, and I wasn’t suicidal.
I should never have come back here.
When I walked away without a word, the bastards laughed even more. His laugh I could pick out in a line up.
“What was that about?” Kieran asked, trotting up beside me.
“Nothing.” I put my hands in my pockets, lifting my shoulders against a gust of wind. The same wind that carried his voice over to me. “It’s best we just leave it be, Kieran.”
“Good to see you Sinead!” Keith’s strong accent made my skin crawl. “I can’t wait to talk and pick up right where we left off.”
I halted in my step. It was just a brief hitch, but it was enough to give away how he made my fucking skin crawl.
He laughed, and his buddies echoed the malicious sound. Him and his little fucking cronies. He always had an entourage of morons. I had thought that made him a leader. Back before I knew what he was. But now I just knew that he was a narcissistic psychopath. Charming on the outside, but inside he was rotten to the fucking core.
Kieran and I walked outside in the cold darkness, across the barely groomed, stomped and muddy courtyard back to our barracks. I almost tripped when I saw Ajax standing under a tree, his arms crossed. He watched us from the darkness like a wolf looking at a hen house, wondering if he should strike.