Page 155 of Ominous: Part 1
“I can’t miss class. Unlike you, I have an attendance record to maintain in order to keep my financial aid.”
He smiles, and I smooth down my skirt to keep from punching him in the middle of his chest, right over the bruises he already has.
“You haven’t been absent once yet,” he finally says.
I clench my teeth, staring at my broken, black bracelet in the cupholder between us. He never moved it. He’s kept track of every day I’ve been in class—all of them. I don’t know why this matters, except as a reminder even when I thought he didn’t notice me, he was always paying attention.
Spoiled and loathsome and rich and able to get away with everything just short of murder, it’s another way he can manipulate everyone around him.
“What did you do with her, Eli?”
I see his knuckles blanch as he squeezes the life out of the shifter, green veins stark against his skin. “Eden.”
I don’t look away from his hand. “Tell me.”
Long seconds of silence.
“What kind of details do you want?” he suddenly snaps, and when I look up, his eyes are on mine. Still leaning back in his seat with a careless sort of posture, arrogant and right now, with his tight jaw and pursed lips, mean. “I answered your question. Isn’t that enough for you? Would you have rather I lied—”
“You didn’t answer me.” I push the button on my seatbelt, twisting in the seat to face him. His gaze leaves mine for one second, going down to my thighs, and I press my knees together, trying to ignore the sweat slick on my skin. “Did you… make out?”
He scoffs, rolling his eyes, and a knot of anger, almost tight enough to choke on, forms in my throat.
“Did you have sex?” I can barely get the words out.
He loses his nasty little smirk.
My heart leaps to my throat, and in my head, I see them. Her on top of him, his fingers in her short hair, over her breasts, grabbing her ass.
“No,” he says, too late, the memory already imbedded in my brain. And is it even false? I hear what he’s saying. I just don’t know why he’s saying it. Because it’s true, or because it’s the best truth for him right now? “I don’t understand why this part matters to you.”
I want to hit something, but there’s a sincerity in his words I can’t quite fault.
“If I fucked her or kissed her shoulder,” he gives me a knowing glance, and the urge to strike out at something grows stronger, “either way, it’s crossing a line to you, right?”
“Stop dancing around the truth. Just tell me what you did.”
He shakes his head, as if I exhaust him.
“Youcame to my house this morning.Youweaseled your way into getting my parents to let me come with you next week.Youdragged me out to this damn park. If you didn’t want to talk about any of this, you should have stayed away.” My chest is heaving, every muscle in my body tense. “So, tell mewhat the fuck you did.”
He chews the inside of his cheek, dropping his gaze over my body, and despite the fact I know he’s trying to make me squirm, and I know I should resist, I can’t. Especially as his eyes linger over my bare thighs, the skirt’s hem resting three inches from my knees.
“We kissed.”
My body temperature skyrockets, already dangerously high, at the same time I clench my abs, waiting to hear it hurt worse, because I know he isn’t finished.
He brings a finger to his choker, running it along the underside, stretching it a little away from his neck. “I wrapped my fingers around her throat.”
I can’t look away from his pulse beating at his own, just underneath the leather band.
“I think I bit her hard enough to make her bleed.”
I want to scream. To tell him to shut up. But I can’t look away. I can’t stop listening. It’s impossible to tear my eyes from the stark white collar of his shirt, the contrast of the strip of leather, his finger beneath it all.
“She kissed her way down my chest.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up.I don’t realize I’m squeezing my thighs with my fingers until I feel a sharp sting, like my nails have broken through my flesh.
