Bullied (Possessed 0.50)

Freak. Trash. Loser.

All names Cecilia Marks was familiar with. Names she’d had since she started school. Apparently, not everyone got the memo about leaving them behind in high school, though. Because here she was in her freshman year at the state college, and her classmates from Kindergarten up till graduation and everything in between were still calling her that.

She could admit she was a nerd. Had the classic nerdy look going on, but that wasn’t why they called her those names. No, they did it because she had scars. She’d grown used to them by the time she started school, but that hadn’t stopped people from pointing them out, making fun, and being general assholes only the way a child knows how to be.

When she was three, she had been in an accident with her parents that had thrown her out a window. It was a miracle she survived. But the glass had torn her body apart. Disfigured her in ways she couldn’t imagine.

Now, at nineteen years old, she still carried the shame. Not her shame, though. No, it was everyone else’s. As she walked the halls to her first class on her first day as a freshman, the whispers and stares followed her. Self-conscious, she pulled the sleeves of her sweater to her fingers and hid her face with her long, mousy brown hair.

Because of this, she wasn’t paying attention and bumped into a brick wall. A very hard, very moving brick wall. The deep masculine chuckle was her first clue that it was, in fact, not a brick wall. The hands gripping her shoulders were her second.

Startling green eyes searching hers out were her final clue. A piercing gaze attached to the most handsome face she’d ever seen. Hard chiseled jaw. Crooked – must have been broken more than once – nose. Full, plump, red lips dying to be kissed. His crooked smile showed amusement. His stare at the scar on her cheek left her cold.

Landon Powers watched the dark-haired goddess draw into herself as she walked down the hall filled with students being typical assholes and professors being grade-A dicks by ignoring the obvious pain she was in and doing nothing. He was fascinated with the way she tried to let it all roll off her back. He saw in her eyes how much it hurt, though, before she lowered her head and used her hair as a curtain to shield her pain.

He felt a need to meet her, so he intentionally got in her way so she would bump into him. As they collided, his body awoke in ways he’d never experienced before. She was soft where he was hard. Her curves molded to him. Her breasts planted against his chest felt delectable. He was ready to throw her to the ground and have his wicked way with her.

When she didn’t look up at him after he’d held her longer than accepta

ble, he knelt down slightly to meet her eyes. Eyes so deep and pain-filled he wanted to toss her over his shoulder caveman style and take her home.

He smirked when she seemed to study his own features. Her gaze travelling up his body felt like a caress. When she finally met his eyes, he tried to hide his shock at seeing the scar on her cheek. By how faded it was, he could tell it was old, but it had to have been one hell of a cut to still be so noticeable.

“Hi,” he murmured, drawing her attention back to his lips. Wanting to play with her, he slowly licked across them. Her indrawn breath was all he needed to know that she was attracted too. “Are you alright…?” He let the question hang, hoping she’d tell him her name.

Clearing her throat, he watched enthralled as she stuck the tip of her tongue out between her pink lips copying his movement. It was his turn to nearly groan out loud waiting for her answer.

“Cecilia,” she whispered.

Perfect, he thought. “Cecilia,” he murmured, needing to hear it come from his lips. Oh yeah, he could see moaning that name out in pleasure for the foreseeable future. “A lovely name for an even lovelier woman,” he told her. The immediate blush that stained her cheeks was adorable.

He could picture that blush creeping up her body as he devoured her juicy pussy for hours. So lost in thought, he must have missed what she said because she started to walk away.

Shaking his head, he quickly turned to follow, placing his hand on her lower back. Just enough so she would feel him on her plump ass with every step. “I’m Landon Powers,” he introduced himself.

She froze mid-step. Turning to look at him, she paled even more than the first time he saw her. “Landon Powers?” Her question baffled him. It’s what he’d said.

“Yes.”

“As in the older brother to Ashley Powers?” The disgust in her voice confused him.

He hesitated in his answer because she obviously had an issue with his baby sister. “Yes, she’s my younger sister.”

Without an answer, she left. That was it, nothing more. She just walked away. As he was about to follow her and find out what the problem was because he couldn’t just walk away – he felt a hand grip his forearm tightly, looking down to the offending appendage he saw delicately painted nails. Following the arm to its owner, he scowled upon seeing his sister. The apparent reason Cecilia wanted nothing to do with him.

“What?” he snapped, irritated with her. She was a spoiled brat who more often than not got her way with their parents. They weren’t very close because of their age difference— her being twenty and him being thirty-one. Never having reason to spend much time together.

“Geez, what crawled up your ass and died?” She mocked him, but her eyes were trained on the beauty who’d just run from him.