12

A rap rap disrupts my focus on my bedroom door before it’s rudely pushed open, and Dane stands in the open space looking at me at my desk by the veranda.

“Monique says to come down for food. You aren’t to eat in your room.” He tells me blankly and then pushes off from my door frame to walk off. Not waiting for a response or to see if I even heard him.

I get up, drop my pen beside my notebook and laptop, and follow him out the door. Glad for the food break as I was starting to see double while working on my essay.

 Seeing him loitering ahead of me in the hallways as he walks at the speed of a snail back to wherever he came from, I hurry to catch up.

“Move, slow ass.” I nudge him to one side with my shoulder, barely budging him as I power march up beside him to get by. Seeing as he’s taking up the center of the walkway. Thrusting myself forward to cut in front of him, yet I'm hauled mid-step with a hand on my upper arm and tugged back again, so I stumble into him.

“Losers come last.” He smirks, pushing me backward with a palm to my forehead, so I am sent reeling behind him, and he takes off into a jog to get down before me.

The competitive streak in me riles up, and impulsive anger takes over that has me righting myself and breaking into a run after him. He’s always been a fast sprinter, but he’s not putting effort into it, and although he spans the upstairs hall in a  minute, I am speedy on his heels and catch him by the hoodie he's wearing. I yank it with all my might, stopping my run that has him break mid-stride and tumble back at me before shoving him sideways into the nearest open door and running like a bat out of hell. He falls into the open space but quickly recovers.

“Oh, hell no, mosquito.”

He’s faster with reflexes than me, and I can’t help but squeal in terror as I am physically grabbed from behind. Sweeping me off my feet, two strong arms wrap me around the waist, and he swings me into mid-air so my heels end up at my eye level. I instinctively grab his arms and cling on, girl-squealing my protest.

“Don’t think so, short stuff. I won’t lose to you.” He laughs in my ear where his face is against mine, pressing our cheeks together warmly before dropping me with a thud onto my ass in a sitting position. He jumps over me, missing me by inches, and starts scaling the staircase taking two steps at a time.

“Asshole. That’s not fair, and you know it.” I yell after him; indignation is strong as I pull myself off the floor and have to put in twice the effort to compete. I will not let this boy get the better of me. Adrenalin is pumping through me now, and I excitedly take off after him.

He has long legs, and the stairs are an easy feat, but I'm not about to take this lying down. I jump onto our polished banister like a deranged monkey, seeing as I switched to my satin lounger pants when I got home and slide down the curved wood to catch up with him.

It’s faster than I expected due to its high gloss finish, and I can't really grip it, or I’ll slow down. Curled over, sliding backward, I meet the last set of steps at high velocity as he does and tumble sideways as the rail curves inwards and is no longer straight. My grip is awful, and I am catapulted, losing a sense of time and space.

I come flying off at speed, shooting at him like a torpedo, knowing this was such a bad idea that it might get me killed. Gravity is not my friend, and my stomach lifts in my body as I am temporarily weightless in the air.

I take Dane down in a flying hurdle I don’t intend. Instead, I am just looking for a soft landing spot to save me from ultimate permanent disfigurement. His arms, face, and torso meet my body side on, and we become a splat-impacted, entangled mess of limbs and grunts as we topple the last small set of five steps into a rolling ball. We crash across the marble floor, somehow ending up wrapped together in the fetal position with me on top, and hit a sliding stop against the nearest pillar.

Theres’ an uncrumpling as we both roll out, the deadweight collapse of body parts, side by side and lay like half-dead animals. Panting and groaning as all the aches and pain hit me from the human collision.

“You’re a psycho.” Dane laughs at me, only not with malice, but he seems impressed I braved the railing and almost ended myself just to beat him. His boyish, genuine chuckle I hear when he’s hanging out with Tyler at lunch. Weird boys are easily awed by crazy girls risking life for a win.

For a moment, I forget how much I dislike him as his smile is infectious and has hints of his dad's, and I laugh and aim a sucker punch at him with a weak arm.

“You’re  a cheat.”

He catches my closed fist and tugs me closer before poking me in the face with a pointer finger and flicking me in the head.

“Only in games… not in relationships.” He turns his head to me, seeing as we're both lying sprawled out a foot apart, limbs still half entangled, and we look one another directly in the eye. A moment of calm after the chaos, and neither is getting up yet as we recover from this train wreck landing. His words remind me of the Renee mess and why we’re both home, and I eyeroll at him. That inner sense of disgust and something else swirling up inside me to remind me that he isn’t worth my time.

“Maybe learn to keep it in your pants.” I get up, using his abdomen as a platform to lever myself up and make sure I apply as much weight as possible as I do so. He grunts and shoves my shoulder, so my elbow gives out, and I have to catch myself from falling onto him.

“Maybe learn to take yours off, and I might show you some interest.” He winks again, only this time I screw up my face in disgust at him. The cheeky grin that he pastes on, and his fingers trail over to my pant waistband as he gives it a mocking tug.

“Ewwwww,” I slap him around the head in reaction, but he catches both my wrists as I am still half perched over the top, and he yanks me down. I slip from the stupidly smooth pants and fall on top of him, banging my nose against his in the process and gasping with the shock of a full-body collision. My breasts splat into his pecks, turning me seven shades of beetroot as a blush envelopes my entire body.

“You’re disgusting.” I try to fight away from him, but he hooks one leg around mine and locks me in place. Keeping my hands far back beside his head so I cannot even lean up.

“You’re uptight and prudish.” He shoves me off him sideways with a fast jerk I don’t expect that has me roll onto my back, and then quick as a flash, he’s on top of me. He pins my hands to each side of my head and gets right in my face, so I hold my breath. Silenced by his maneuver and too stunned to do a thing initially. Held by his entire weight, he has my legs and pelvis under his, so I am utterly immobile. “Don’t worry, Kayla….you are the last girl on this planet I would want to get like this naked…. You’re not my type.”

“That’s because I have an IQ and standards. Get off of me.” I squirm against him, but he only tightens his hold and pushes his torso into mine with more weight to subdue me. He lowers his head so his nose grazes mine, his mouth close enough that I can feel his soft breath on my lips. I hold my breath and freeze as he tilts his head to one side and lowers his voice to a crazy, deep, slow, precise way of talking. Suddenly petrified into stillness.

“Kayla…honey…. Sweetest, untouched and pure little lady of mine….”My name slides off his tongue in a crazy seductive way that makes me swallow my saliva with a nervous gulp, and I’m a deer caught in the headlights. So unsure of this predatory change in him. All my normal fire and fight dissipates under this hulk of male hormones. So close that the slightest movement from either of us will have his lips on mine. I suddenly can’t think straight or breathe. I am too scared to move.

Aware of every inch of a muscular, large body, hot and firm, pressing down on mine in ways they should not be, I get way too hyperfocused on where his actual groin is in relation to mine.

I feel like my heart might explode through my chest as my whole body tenses and my blood starts to run through my body noisily. My skin tingles and goosebumps all over, and his pale eyes so close seem to darken as his pupils expand and hold me captive. He pauses and breathes so slowly that my lips tingle with the tickling touch, and he appears to inch a minuscule of a hairbreadth closer, so the static between us ignites over my entire face. I am paralyzed with nervousness.

“You know…. If I was drunk, blind, and desperate… I might think about it.” He smirks, lifting away to laugh at me, breaking the captive hold he has over me with his eerie dark magic, and it’s like a sucker punch in the stomach. An insult I never knew could be such a sober slap. He looks so satisfied with my reaction to him, and I know that jerk just played me.

“No one offered…. if I was drunk, blind, desperate, and you were the only man left to procreate with… I would pass. I would rather see extinction than let you touch me.” I snap back at him, frost taking over and utter contempt at what an asshole he is. Burned by whatever that just was.

“Ooooh, Sexy mad…. I love it when you get all seething hateful and bitchy. Reminds me of your toxic mother and the urge to smother you to death.” He retorts in sarcasm, cooling off from the hot and heavy he was a second ago and replacing that sexy expression with one of scorn. I wiggle one leg loose enough to bring my knee up with a thrust aiming right for his balls. Fuelled by a wave of inner anger I never knew I could possess.

Incensed at him, I give it my all.

It’s a slight moment of victory, not as hard as I wanted, but his oooft noise and crumbling on top of me before dramatically rolling away and clutching his manhood tells me I hit the bingo mark. It was probably a scrape rather than a full assault, but I snort in pride that I got him where it hurts.

“Ever pin me down like that again, and I’ll castrate you. You are a complete pervert. I wouldn’t touch you if my life depended on it.” I sit up, barking it at him, dust myself off, and get up to search for food in the kitchen. Acting like none of this affected me even though my legs are like Jello and my pulse is going four times the normal rate. My insides are all churned up, and I am a little lightheaded. My mood is foul, and I am close to smashing something over his head.

 He’s lucky our parents are not home during the day because my mom would have mauled him for that little display.