Page 49 of Scars of the Sun
After running through their new song all the way through, recording it this time, Jess stood from her stool and initiated a round of high-fives. “That’s it—time to celebrate!” Brody called, and Jess sent up a resounding shout in agreement.
Even Tyler’s mouth went a tick above a flat line, and he let Río jostle his shoulder. Apparently the moment of tension between them before was forgotten.
Río skipped over to me and crouched to my level. “You good to stay for a little pool party?”
My stomach clenched like there was a boulder in it, even as I tried to convince myself that pool party didn’t mean I had to take off my sweatshirt. That my swimsuit could remain forgotten in the depths of my backpack.
At the risk of my voice trembling, I jerked a nod and let him stare into my eyes as he so often did. Río tilted his head again and brought a thumb to sweep across my cheek. “You sure? Did you bring a swimsuit?” I nodded again, hoping that he’d take that as an answer to both questions when it really wasn’t.
I glanced to the rest of the room, where the other band members and Alex were chatting and putting away their stuff. Their skin looked so smooth, unblemished and perfect, and I hated them. Myself.
“Hey, hey, where’d you go?” Río’s touch moved to my jaw, and I let him turn me to face him. He followed where I’d been looking, and realization swept his features. When he refocused on me, he wasn’t mocking like I’d been fearing. “Ah.”
Well, that was fuckingworse.
He pulled on my arms, ushering to my feet, and without another word to me or glance at his friends, he guided us through Tyler’s house. I kept my mouth slammed shut and chewed the inside of my cheek. Really, it was his fault for bringing me here, knowing that his, his, ex-somethingwas going to be present. Or, did he not care enough about my feelings to even think about it?
Río selected a room that was a few doors down a hallway I hadn’t yet seen, far enough away from the others that they were an ignorable buzzing in my mind.
There was a neatly made, king-sized bed dressed in a black comforter and white pillows. The dark wooden floor and deep maroon walls were brightened by white candles on the night tables, as well as a large, erotic sketch that hung behind the bed. A stretch of windows looked on the side of the house and the darkening night. The grass was manicured and a sharp contrast against the wild forest on the other side of the lawn. It was the same forest that housed my brother’s land, the same that neighbored the witch house, and there was something grounding about its depths.
“Are you going to be a big girl and use your words, Ramona?”
I whirled around, no longer using the sight outside as my excuse to not look at him. Still, my mouth stayed stubbornly closed, but my fists were balled up at my sides. He just had to do that. Goad me while—while looking and smelling and being like that. It was bullshit. Frustrating.
Scary.
He stepped up to me, taking advantage of the four or five inches he had on me to stare down. He didn’t touch me, despite how close our chests were, and it made me even angrier. “I’m not pulling it out of you. So tell me, or stay stewing. Your choice.”
Despite my breaths accelerating, my shoulders rising and falling faster and faster, he still denied me the comfort of his skinon mine. My body felt like it was on fire with the need for his care, for his touch, and it just infuriated me further. What the fuck was happening to me, and what thefuckwas he doing to me?
“You knew they’d be here.” My words, that he’d so lovingly demanded, were a venomous hiss. If I’d had any magic like Sylvie, the force of it would’ve struck Alex, all the way on the other side of the house, dead.
Río continued to trap me with his black eyes, face and body unmoving. “Who.”
“You fucking know who. Do you still want to fuck Alex?” I barely held myself from spitting on the floor after saying their name. No matter that they were nice and had done nothing to me except know Río first and have some unknown range of sexual experiences with him.
Something that should be all mine,a growling thought roared in my mind, making red halo around my vision. The only thing saving both of them was that there’d never been a whiff of Alex on Río since the party. Just me.
As if he could sense how close I was to breaking, Río crossed the churning chasm widening between us and took my face in his hands. But he didn’t lick my face or kiss me. His hold was almost too tight when he brought our faces so close together that our noses touched. “The only one I want to fuck is you, Ramona.”
The words simultaneously hit me straight through the heart while batting uselessly against the stone walls I’d erected around myself. How could he just want me? “Why.” He was confident and without a care in the world, despite what he’d certainly been through if his damaged eyesight was any indication. And I was me. Broken and floating uncertainly. Not a pretty and charming person like Alex, or cheerful like his friends Brody or Jess. Or even Tyler, with his dark, unshakable personality.
Sharp teeth snapped my bottom lip between them, drawing blood and a gasp from my blustering lungs. He let me bleed.
“Because you’re mine, Princess.” My stomach flipped, and my heart thundered.
His. It was too good, too much of what I’d been longing for but too afraid to speak. And how dare he fucking say that when he wasn’t even going to keep me.
Instead of melting in his arms and begging him to fuck me until I had no energy to object or fight anything he said, I took my hands and shoved.
Río’s hold on me was ripped away, and the loss of contact made tears rise and spill onto my cheeks. I swiped at the wet trails with the backs of my wrists, but the reminder of my hoodie, the cuffs scraping on my skin and soaking up my tears, just made me scream.
A hoarse, wet shout that only served to build my frustration. “You don’t fucking know me! I’m not nice. I’m not polite or sweet. Orpretty. Not like the people you apparently like. And. This is temporary, so how can I even be yours?” I was close to hyperventilating, or maybe even already there.
“Princess—”
“Stop.” I was done, so, so done with pretending that I was able to do this, but he kept calling me that name. Like I was something precious to be played with and treated with pleasure and care. Not broken and barely patched together with the pathetic list of mundane things to cling to.