Defiant Princess (Boys of Oak Park Prep 2)

My hands hit it with a loud smack, and I shoved it open, waves of adrenaline making me feel sick as I sprinted down the hall. The locker room. The locker room. I’d be safe in the locker room.

I rounded the corner toward the stairs—

And smashed into a body.

There was a grunt, and large hands caught my arms, steadying me. Cole stared down at me, and his expression shifted in less than a second as he took in my appearance.

Every bit of softness drained from his features, replaced by a fury I’d never seen before, and his blue gaze flicked past me before he let go of my arms and strode down the hall with long, purposeful strides.

I stood frozen for a moment, watching the place where he’d disappeared around the corner.

The door opened and closed.

A single raised voice started to speak, but it was cut off by noises I knew well.

Grunts and yells echoed from the room, punctuated by the sound of a solid fist hitting flesh.

Slowly, almost against my will, I moved down the hall, drawn by the sound and a terrible, morbid need to see.

I pulled open the door to the studio, and my stomach flipped. Cole must’ve come in here like a fucking Terminator. I wasn’t sure if Oliver had gotten a single punch in, but if he hadn’t already, he never would now. He was on the floor, Cole kneeling over him, half straddling his body. The larger boy held the front of Oliver’s shirt in one hand while his other hand rained down blows like he was trying to kill him. Oliver was grunting, screaming, and moaning, but Cole was silent. Focused.

My gaze fixed on the sight, and for the second time, I froze.

The sight before me was terrifying, but somehow, I couldn’t lift a finger to try to stop it.

My breath suspended in my lungs as I watched Cole’s fist descend over and over, his knuckles smeared red with blood—just like Oliver’s nose and teeth.

When I finally sucked in a breath, it was on a gasp, my seizing lungs working too hard to draw in oxygen.

It wasn’t a loud sound, but Cole’s head snapped up to me like a predator catching a new scent. His piercing blue gaze landed on me again, and he rose to his feet, hurling Oliver away from him like a sack of potatoes. The other boy landed on his ass and rolled onto his side, coughing and wheezing as he crawled to his feet. He started toward me, but before panic at his approach could really register, he pushed past me and ran down the hall.

The door shut with a click behind him, leaving Cole and me alone in the room. Splotches of blood were smeared on the light wood floor, and little droplets marked the path where Oliver had fled.

Cole stared at me, his broad chest rising and falling fast, his hands still clenched into fists. And it was only as my shock began to fade that I realized how he had known at a single glance what’d happened to me. The right strap of my leotard had torn when I pulled away from Oliver’s grasp. It hung uselessly down my front now, the fabric on that side drooping so low it left almost my entire breast exposed.

I reached my opposite hand to lift the fabric, covering myself quickly, and that sharp movement seemed to jerk Cole out of his stasis. He crossed the room with the same determined stride, running his hands over me to check for injuries.

“What the fuck did he do?” he grunted. “Motherfucker.”

His touch was rough, leaving little smears of red on my skin from the blood that still coated his knuckles, and it struck me how completely made of violence Cole was—how even his tenderness had an element of violence to it.

It made me think of his father, of my father, and as he skated his hands roughly over my arms, sides, and ne

ck, I noticed a new mark on his face, just below his eye.

Had he gotten that from his dad, or the fight club?

Had he started the fight club as a way to hide the injuries he got from his father?

Without thought, my fingertips drifted up to brush over the small, purple bruise. It was a light touch, but Cole jerked away as if I’d hit him, stepping back and staring at me in shock. His gaze fell to my hand, which was still holding up the useless strap of my leotard, and he grabbed the hem of his t-shirt, yanking it over his head.

“Here.”

He shoved it toward me, and I took it slowly, watching him with a wary gaze. His tattooed chest glistened with sweat, the swirls of black ink almost seeming to move on their own accord as his muscles bunched and flexed. The rage in him sat just below the surface, pulsing under his skin.

Without taking my gaze off of him, I released the strap and quickly pulled the shirt over my head. It smelled like him, a faint hint of ginger and pine, and it covered my leotard completely, the hem reaching my upper thighs.

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the movement, the veins in his neck still standing out. “What happened?”