“You don’t wanna do this,” I say desperately, my voice coming out muffled between his fingers.
“Oh, but I do, so fucking much. In fact, I’ve been thinking of doing just this since I first saw you, pretty little Dahl.”
I feel his warm dick, either half-mast or not as big as Graham’s, pressing against my groin and squeeze my eyes shut. It’s enough to renew my will to fight. I try to knee him in the balls, but he anticipates my move and backs away in time. I throw out an arm haphazardly and manage to get a scream out while my fingernails meet flesh. I latch on and drag down his skin as hard as I can.
“You fucking bitch!” I look up and see Shawn, face clawed and bloodied, staring at his equally bloody hand in disbelief. My brief moment of victory is cut short when he winds up and backhands me with the same blood-stained hand. My head flies backwards and hits the corner of a shelf, and the pain screams through my head. Where is Graham?
Discombobulated, I feel a hand twist and jerk the straps to my dress and bra. I’m totally exposed, and I can’t seem to make my body listen to my brain, which is telling me to fight.
Sucking in a breath, I mentally prepare myse
lf for what’s to come…then I feel him release me.
I open my eyes, confusion and relief dancing in my stomach, when I see why Shawn let me go. He is on all fours on the floor, the music blasting from outside swallowing his moans and groans. Graham rushes to help me up, examining the damage.
“Are you ok? Did he fucking hurt you, Dolly? Tell me!” He practically roars the words. I feel my chin wobbling, fighting off the urge to cry. I shake my head, but I can’t get the words out. He scoops me up like a baby, and sets me on the couch in the guest room, before removing his jacket and tossing it around my shoulders to cover me up. He tears his tie off, rips open the collar of his dress shirt, and bunches his sleeves up. He looks absolutely fucking terrifying. A vein I’ve never noticed is bulging from his forehead, and it’s all I can focus on in my state of shock. Shawn sputters and coughs, bringing his attention back to him.
“Man, what the fuck, what the hell! This is a mistake, I didn’t, I’m not—” he starts saying, but then Graham, who is standing above him, kicks him in the ribs again. Shawn collapses to the floor. The look on Graham’s face is manic. His eyes are sparkling with something crazy. His jaw tenses and his nostrils wide, I can see it even in the pitch black.
Graham kicks Shawn again, this time in the face.
“You think you can hurt my girl? In my fucking house? Do you know who the fuck I am?” Graham asks flatly. His voice is calm, but his face and body tell a different story. I jump on Graham, pulling him away from Shawn.
“Please, Graham.”
But he keeps kicking Shawn, so I pull his arm in both my hands and whisper to him, “He’s the district attorney’s son. Let him go.”
I guess “district attorney” is some kind of a magic word, because it makes Graham listen, and he finally spins around to face me, examining my face closely. I try to smile, even though I know that in all probability he’s seeing my face smeared with Shawn’s blood, and my ripped dress.
“Hey, I’m okay. He didn’t get to…” I trail off because I can’t say the words, but I know he understand when his nostrils flare and gives me a clipped nod. I link my fingers together behind his back, hugging him. I don’t even care that Shawn is in the room. I’m pretty sure he is out of it, and when he comes to, the last thing he’d do is rat me out. He’s just been kicked real good. I’m not going to be surprised if he broke a few ribs in the process.
“I’m going to make sure he never does that again to anyone else, district attorney’s son or not.” Graham sounds so resolute; I don’t want to argue with him. I should probably warn my friends and girls at school from Shawn. This is outrageous. I’ve never seen him like this, and that makes me wonder whether he’s tried doing it to somebody else…or worse, if he’d succeeded.
“I don’t care about Shawn. I’m okay,” I state again, and Graham rubs his thumb over my lower lip, inspecting my face.
“It’s not my blood,” I assure quickly, trying to put him at ease. “I smacked my head but I’m fine, I promise.”
Graham nods, rubbing my lip with the pad of his thumb. He takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself down.
“You got him good, Dolly. If you hadn’t bought yourself those few extra seconds…” I don’t even want to think about that.
“How did you know?” I ask softly.
“The cameras. I see videos of everything in my room. I’ve been following your whereabouts all night, wanted to make sure that you’re okay. I made one phone call. That’s all it took….”
I try to bite my grin, but there’s no point. My face shines like the moon even after taking a beating.
“You’ve been watching me?”
Graham reaches for my cheek, pulling my face into his and kissing my forehead with his eyes shut. “I’m very protective of you, Dolly. I’m protective of you as a lover and as a pseudo guardian. Not because I feel like I’m your father, but because you’ve never had someone who took care of you, and that sucks.”
“I have you now,” I declare, tracing my finger along the scar on his temple. God, it makes him even more beautiful. He groans when my hand disappears inside his black mane.
“Everyone needs to get the fuck out of this house. It’s time to play and I am not a team player.”
I raise one eyebrow, a playful smile tugging at my lips. “Then it’s a good thing my scary step-daddy happens to be home to shut this shit down, isn’t it?”
I’m not sure what Graham said to have two hundred rich kids scrambling for the exit, but they cleared out in two seconds flat…except for Jade, of course. At five feet and five inches of fury, I feel like she can even give Graham a run for his money. She isn’t afraid of anyone, and wasn’t buying whatever Graham was selling. She refused to leave without seeing that I was okay, and of course I don’t exactly look okay, so here I am, sitting on my bed, being interrogated by my cock-blocking BFF.