6 Chapter 6: Please Don't Hurt Me

Remi

Chaz texted me to say he probably wouldn’t make it after all, and I was relieved now. The conversation I’d had with Travis left me rattled for hours. I hated that he still had the power to reduce me to a puddle. But what I hated even more was that his sixteen-year-old smug ass not only knew it but reveled in it.

I remembered feeling like a pervert even way back that first time Ms. De Luca asked me to babysit. I’d been so fixated on the hickeys on his neck. Back then, I’d never even been kissed. I knew he was younger than I was, but I never would’ve by just looking at him. Still, the fact that I was almost two years older, especially then, made it weird to share with anyone what I’d always wondered.

If he was really as experienced as the act he put on.

Travis was now a bad boy in every way. The crowd he hung out with, most of them were drop-outs, and some even ran with a local biker club. I felt for his mother. She had her hands full. I was only surprised, even at his young age, that he hadn’t already moved out or been thrown in jail.

For a while, I’d begun to think maybe I’d grown out of my lust for him. Maybe he was everything I should hate in guys. He’d become a disrespectful jackass, too damn full of himself. But even as things changed, and it felt like he was pushing me away, I’d begun to wonder if I might not be in love with the jerk. Even when he explained the real reason he called me Cherry, I’d been secretly thrilled. Still, every time I heard him say it since and saw the gleam in his eyes because I knew what he was thinking, I blushed clear up from the bottom of my spine to the top of my head.

The year he started high school had been when the real nightmare started for me. It was as impossible for me to not get caught up in his wickedly sexy stares as it was for him to stick with one girl. My only saving grace was that he showed up to school about as much as he kept his smart remarks to himself. Thankfully, after our prom discussion that hadn’t ended well, he’d stopped doing the full-time school thing. He started taking the online option. So, he was only required to show up when he was ready to test whatever material he’d been given to do at home. That was usually only once a week.

But I would have been a hypocrite to say I wasn’t just as incorrigible as all those girls who threw themselves at him. I’d deemed all those girls pathetic and desperate. I could’ve easily said no to Ms. De Luca when she asked me to babysit. In fact, my dad still made no secret of what he thought of not just Travis but the De Luca family in general.

Yet, there I was, every single time. Heck, I’d even cancelled stuff at the last minute just for the chance to be around him. But I much preferred being around him here alone than at school. Guys like Travis were not the kind of guys you wanted to be associated with. If anyone had gotten wind that he and I had gotten as close as we once were, they would have automatically assumed I’d already given him the goods. I was becoming more and more afraid I just might if he ever put any real effort into it.

Tonight didn’t count. He’d been teasing—getting his fix of my mortification. After things changed between us, it was obvious he was pushing and testing the boundaries. But what he did to me when he looked at me the way he did tonight was becoming too dangerous. His comment tonight was not without real curiosity. It was a dare.

Unless you’d like me to stay and indulge my craving here.

Just hearing him say that P word had scandalized me as much as it turned me on. His offer to stay and indulge his craving really had felt like a test. I almost hadn’t turned to look at him flicking his tongue because I’d been afraid he might see through my resistance to him—know that I’d been fantasizing about the things he would do to me if I let him. This sixteen-year-old!

His age was what I armed myself with when I argued with my dad that he was harmless and that I could more than handle him. What a joke! My dad, who obviously knew better, argued right back that Travis was not your typical sixteen-year-old. Boy did he nail that one.

I checked on the boys in their room. Trevor was asleep and Trace was still playing video games. It wasn’t that late yet, not even nine, but by the look of his sleepy eyelids, I was pretty sure he’d be out soon too. I walked out into the hallway and slowed as I passed Travis’s bedroom. I’d only ever looked in from the hallway but had never actually been in it. Did I dare?

I glanced around then ducked my head in. Like all the other times I’d peeked in, I was surprised it was so neat. As foul-mouthed as he was and as much trouble as Travis had always been into, I expected his room to be just as messy as his life seemed to be. For the first time ever, I took a few more steps into his room and glanced around. To my surprise, there were a couple of books on his nightstand. There were book marks poking out the top of some of the books, so he was obviously reading them, and oddly this excited me. I walked over to get a closer look at what he was reading. I was expecting porn or even explosives-making manuals.

“Moby Dick?” I whispered when I was close enough to see the title. I tilted my head to see the spine on the one underneath. “A Farewell to Arms.”

He was into classics. I would’ve never—”

“Looking for something?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of Travis’s voice. “I was just—”

“Snooping?” he said with an evil smirk.

While I was glad he didn’t look mad, my face was on fire because he was absolutely right. I shook my head but had no answer for him, and I was mortified. If I could have run out, I would have, but I couldn’t because he took a few steps closer to me and I was frozen. I shivered when he got so close I could feel the warmth of his body against mine. His warm breath near my face made my trembling even more uncontrollable as he leaned in and whispered in my ear. “I can smell your cherry.”

His lips kissed my temple, and my entire body was on fire from just that. “Your skin is so soft.”

My body was one giant goose bump, and I was incapable of moving or speaking as my breathing and heart rate accelerated. “My brothers are asleep,” he whispered in my ear again, reducing me to a trembling mess. “I just came here to grab another joint, but I’d love nothing more than to kiss you.”

Why was I not moving? Why was I barely able to breathe? And why did just the thought of him kissing me make me ache with anticipation? “Well”—his warm breath resonated off my neck as he chuckled against it— “that and to lick your sweet pussy. I promise you I’ll stop there, but you’ll love it and that’s not a promise. That’s a guarantee.”

I was scandalized again by the word, but I closed my eyes, unable to say what I should have. No way. My heart was pounding because I could already tell he knew I was considering something that should be so offensive, so scandalous. He knew it because he kissed my neck and I let him as a whimper escaped me. Not only was I allowing this, but I was enjoying it. So much.

He rushed away and closed his door then locked it. I was still glued to the spot, my body still quivering from his kisses, and he was back in an instant, kissing my mouth now as it had never been kissed. My insides were going wild. My legs lost all strength, and my mind was completely blown away by the skill of Travis’s tongue—his touch. My father was absolutely right about him. This was no boy.

“We don’t have a lot a time, and I’m dying to taste you,” he said as he tugged my hand toward his bed.

My mind was screaming that at some point I’d have to say no. Say something. I hadn’t said a word since he first whispered in my ear. But I couldn’t think of a single thing to say except, “Please don’t hurt me.”

He froze then stared in my eyes with those piercing eyes even as he started to pull my shorts down my hips. As if he knew, as he always had, our unspoken connection was alive and well still. He understood I didn’t just mean physically. “Never,” he said with such conviction I believed him unequivocally.