My Darling Arrow (St. Mary's Rebels 1)

I’m not asking him to love me, am I?

I’m only asking him to use me, use my body, and he won’t even do that. And I’m too hurt and too much in love with him so I’ve lost my mind over it.

That’s why I walk to the dance floor to find someone. Someone who’ll take my virginity and make me perfect for the guy I love.

I don’t know why I want to cry though. I don’t know why I feel like throwing up.

The song that’s playing is my favorite of all – “Born to Die” by Lana Del Rey – and my body is already writhing to it. I’m already twisting my hips, moving them in the shape of a figure eight, the way I did when I was chasing my orgasm on his thigh.

I throw my hands up and dance to the slow rhythm of the song, to the lyrics. I dance when my eyes cry pretty tears that flow down my cheeks. I dance when I want my legs to give up and make me fall.

At some point, a guy comes to dance next to me and my tears flow harder. He can’t see them though. It’s dark and he’s drunk.

He’s perfect.

He won’t even know that I’m a virgin, completely unfit for the love of my life.

I’m about to ask him to take me somewhere equally dark, where he won’t be able to see my tears, and fuck me, when I feel someone at my back.

Someone tall and strong and familiar.

Someone whose chest is moving, punching my back in a haphazard rhythm. I can even hear his breaths in my ears, noisy and loud, agitated.

He’s so warm that he flows like liquid heat in my veins.

My Arrow.

I close my eyes in relief and Lana’s voice explodes around me.

He grabs my waist, his fingers digging into my flesh.

A wave of heat grips me and I sigh.

I’ve been feeling cold and shivery, but he makes it all go away when he pulls me into his body. His hard, hard body and oh my God, I feel it.

I feel his erection at the small of my back and I can’t help but arch up against it, rub up against the heat radiating from it.

He growls in my ear, his lips rubbing over my delicate shell, his hips shifting, pushing back. “Turn the fuck around.”

I hiccup and do as he says.

His features are shadowed by the rim of his baseball cap but I see the movement of his jaw when he notices my tears. He wipes them with his rough thumbs, his digits lingering around the area of my parted lips.

“You’re coming with me,” he tells me.

“Where are you taking me?” I whisper.

“Where you belong.”

My heart shrivels. “I’m not going back to St. Mary’s.”

His eyes flash. “No, you’re not. Because you belong with me.”

His motel room is gray and dull.

That’s the first thing I notice when I step in.

It’s also very clean and made up. Generic. With a desk under the window, a slim-backed chair, a chest with drawers by its side. Tons of weights stacked up in one corner. A door that probably leads to the bathroom.

And a bed.

I’m not looking at the bed yet for some strange reason. But from what I can gather from the corners of my eyes, it has crisp white sheets with a dark gray blanket on the foot.

I walk in, my feet muffled on the gray carpet.

Unlike my heartbeats.

My heartbeats are loud. So very loud and I bet he can hear them.

My Arrow.

Who’s just stepped in after me and closed the door with a click.

I feel that tiny click in my bare thighs.

Well, I’m wearing a plaid skirt tonight that I borrowed from Poe. Up until he showed up at the bar, I was feeling cold even in his jacket.

But not anymore.

My thighs don’t feel cold at all. Not even when I was riding behind him and we were speeding down the highway, wind whipping against my flesh.

In fact, they were hot.

Like they are now.

When I reach the opposite wall, I turn around and lean against it.

Arrow is doing the same. He’s leaning against the door, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes on me.

I press my thighs together. “There’s a lot of gray in this room.”

My first words to him ever since we left the bar.

He tips his chin, his stubbled, rough jaw catching the overhead light. “I like gray.”

His first words to me after he said that I belonged with him.

Biting my lip at the memory, I tell him, “Gray’s super dull.”

“Unlike sunshine yellow.”

I look at his hair then. It’s all messed up, strands falling over his arched brows.

And I regret being so far away from him. Where I can’t smooth them away.

I don’t know why I chose this spot to stand against when all I want – all I’ve ever wanted – is to be close to him.