I saw his amusement and paused. “Did you bring me in here to make him mad?”
He glanced away, slowly taking his hands out from underneath my dress. I sucked in a breath as I looked to Isaiah, who had murder written all over his face. Why did I feel guilty?
“Bain asked him to. And it’s not the first time he has done something that Bain wanted. Jeremy over here apparently likes getting his teeth knocked in. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have agreed.” Isaiah took a step closer to us, but I ignored him and glared at the guy who was just kissing me.
“Is that true?” I couldn’t trust a single fucking soul in this school! Games, games, games!
His lip hitched. “It’s not the only reason. I heard your moans the other night in the library with Isaiah.” His gaze traveled down my body as he licked his lips. “You’re fucking hot, babe. Who would say no to you?” I felt so dense, and I was instantly angry.
My leg swiftly came up, and I kneed him right in the balls, relishing as he dropped to the floor. “You’re a bad kisser anyway.”
I stood over him as he cupped himself, and I felt the urge to spit, but instead, I straightened my shoulders and pulled down the hem of my dress. I was ready to get out of this basement. Actually, I was ready to get out of this school. I left Jeremy on the ground, begging myself to keep my eyes away from Isaiah, and walked over to the door with my dignity only half intact.
I would slosh through cool water in the dark underground hallway and go back to my room all on my own. I didn’t need Sloane or Mercedes to hold my hand as the familiar feeling of panic came at me from the small area. I was fine.
“Yeah fucking right,” Isaiah muttered, grabbing onto my arm. He pulled me right back into that stuffy room and pushed me up against the wall.
Jeremy slowly got to his feet, still wheezing, and he half-laughed while shutting the door behind him.
The intensity of the air grew even thicker. So thick I could hardly breathe. Isaiah’s blue eyes drove into mine, and I gulped, pressing farther away from him. I feigned anger, but deep down, I was faltering. I couldn’t pinpoint my emotions, but the longer Isaiah glared at me, the more I teetered over the edge.
“Why are you here right now?” I bit out. “What are you doing?”
Isaiah’s hands clamped down on my wrists as he flung my arms up above my head. My heart galloped, and the hotness I was feeling moments ago while thinking about his mouth on mine instead of Bain’s accomplice only burned me more. Ugh.
“What am I doing, Gemma?” He laughed in my face, and I could see the irritation on his features. The vein in his neck pulsed as fast as my chest rose. “What are you doing?” Isaiah’s face grew closer to mine, and my throat closed up. My body was still reacting, and it felt so right to be this close to him.
“What do you mean what am I doing?” I asked, tipping my chin up and leveling him with a glare just as potent as his. “You interrupted what I was doing!”
He rolled his eyes, and his hands tightened on my wrists. He was the only one I would let touch my wrists without feeling the need to pull away. He knew what laid beneath this black fabric. “This isn’t you,” he whispered, scanning over every inch of my face before dropping his gaze down my body. Butterflies rushed to my stomach, and when I tried to turn my head away, one of his hands left my wrists, and he grabbed my chin. His thumb came up and swiped over my swollen lips, surely smearing the red lipstick that Sloane told me to wear. “This lipstick isn’t you.” My brows crowded, and my mouth set into a firm line. Isaiah let go of my chin and touched my ponytail that cleared my face of any stray hairs. “This hair isn’t you.” I gasped as his finger hooked underneath the tiny elastic holding my hair in place, snapping it in half. My brown locks fell in one single whoosh around my face. He swallowed, his throat bobbing with a force that I felt in between my legs. His one hand still gripped my wrists tightly, but the other crept down the side of my cheek and over the dip of my neck so slowly I began panting. The pad of his finger skimmed over my cleavage, and my back bowed, and I couldn’t even become angry at the betrayal of my body. It acted on its own. It wanted Isaiah despite everything. It wanted his touch. His kiss. His soft whispers. My body knew I needed that solitude again. Reckless. Irrational. That was what I was when it came to him, and it was rebellion in the form of a single touch.
His hoarse voice snagged my attention, and I stared directly at his inviting mouth. “And this dress.” His tongue darted out, and he grazed his bottom lip, and I clenched my teeth so I wouldn’t kiss him. “This dress isn’t you.”
My breath fanned over his face, and we locked eyes. My heart squeezed. “You don’t know me as well as you think, Isaiah.”
His thumb slowly rubbed over my pinned wrists, grazing my ugly scars beneath the black fabric. “I don’t have to know all of your secrets to truly know you, Gemma.”
I jerked on my wrists, but he didn’t let me go, and I couldn’t look away from him. I craved his eyes on me, and there was no way I was willingly leaving this room with him inside it. “I don’t even know who I am, Isaiah. So how can you know?”
“That’s a lie.” His dark chuckle brought me back to life, and suddenly, my mouth was a breath away from his. “You know exactly who you are. You know exactly what you want, and you won’t stop until you get it.” His knee nestled in between my thighs, and I gladly opened them. His words were intoxicating, and I could no longer feel the alcohol in my blood. Instead, I felt him. “You are determined.” He pushed closer, and I nearly whimpered. “You are strong.” His hand gripped my thigh, and his fingers dug into my skin. “You are brave.” His nose traced the curve of my cheek as he finally let go of my captured wrists. His palm came up, and he rested it along the concrete wall, right beside my head. “Most importantly, you know when to retreat from danger. That’s why you’re running from Richard.”
Richard. Not uncle. He said Richard.
I swallowed, trembling underneath him. I needed it to stop. The push and pull between us. I wanted the room to just stop spinning for a minute so I could get myself together.
His words cut through the room. “Tell me to fucking go, right now.”
I glanced around the dusty, dirty room as his teeth scraped over my ear lobe. “Wh-what?”
Isaiah suddenly pulled back, the look of pure agony on his face hardly hidden by the anger brewing. “I’m fucking dangerous for you. Just like Richard. So tell me to go.”
My brows came together, but I was too stunned to say anything. He was nothing like Richard.
“Tell me you hate me!” he yelled, letting go of my body and caging my head in between his strong forearms. There was a bead of sweat forming on his hairline, and I knew the reason his hair was messed up was because Breanna had been running her hands through it as she moved over him, but I didn’t care. “Tell me you wanted that guy instead of me. Tell me you’d rather fuck anyone in this school besides me! Tell me no. Push me away.”
That was when it hit me. Isaiah wasn’t pulling me in and pushing me away because he wanted to. He was pulling me in because he couldn’t push me away. He wanted me to be the one to do it. And I should have. I should have placed my hands on his chest and shoved him clear across the room because he was right. He was dangerous. His father was dangerous. Richard was dangerous. Bain was dangerous too. All in their own ways.
But I wavered. My fingers scraped along the stone wall behind me, and I stared. I stared into his eyes, seeing the trouble brewing within the blue specks, and it matched mine. We were both stuck. We were both torn between right and wrong, trying to get each other to understand something we didn’t even comprehend.
Isaiah’s head dropped, and he reared his hand back and slapped the wall beside me. “Go!” The word was like a mountain falling, but I stayed still. He was hurting. I felt him shake along my chest, and it didn’t matter that he’d hurt me the night his father had found me—unknowingly or not. It didn’t matter that I was relishing in this newfound independence I’d felt while talking to Bain by myself yesterday. It didn’t matter that my stomach bottomed out when I saw him with Breanna. Nothing mattered except him.
Life wasn’t easy for him.
And it wasn’t easy for me either.