A Gorgeous Villain Read online

  See, that’s his magic I think.

  The dark magic that I was talking about.

  It makes him glow.

  Like his very skin absorbs whatever light is in the vicinity, leaving the rest of the world in darkness.

  So much so that the only thing you can see, the only thing that you can focus on, is him and nothing else.

  But.

  But, but, but.

  I’m one of the Thornes. I’m my brothers’ sister. I know better.

  So I should look away, and I do.

  Well, I try to.

  Because the moment I make the decision to look away, he decides to look up at me.

  And I step back.

  As if someone has pushed me. As if he has pushed me. He has put his hands on me and I had to step back, had to, under the weight of his touch.

  The strength of his gaze, his wolf eyes that land right on me.

  And now that he has found me, he’s not letting me go.

  He’s absolutely not letting me leave. My legs won’t even move. They won’t.

  Because they somehow, the traitors, know that he wants me here.

  It’s in the way that he slowly straightens up, the way he completely abandons interest in the girl beside him. It’s in the way something breaks open on his face, on his gorgeous, gorgeous face made up of sharp, smooth, fascinating lines as soon as he sees me.

  Something that looks a lot like interest. Curiosity.

  Something that makes his pretty eyes go slightly wide followed by a tiny smirk on his lips.

  It’s like… he’s excited that I’m here.

  It’s like he’s thinking, now the fun begins…

  I’m not sure how I know all of this. But I do.

  It’s not as if I’m an expert on Reed Roman Jackson.

  I mean, we haven’t even talked before.

  This may be the first time that he’s looked at me, and this morning when I woke up, I had no idea that today would be the day he’d look at me for the first time ever.

  So yeah, I have no clue how I know all this except that I feel exposed under his eyes. I feel vulnerable and fragile. I feel like I’ve somehow walked into an evil den.

  His evil den.

  Which isn’t that far from the truth.

  I am in his evil den and I need to move. Right now.

  I need to run. I need to…

  Suddenly there’s a commotion and Reed’s attention breaks away from me. And I think I draw my first breath since he found me in this chaos.

  It’s Tempest. The source of commotion, I mean. She’s running toward Reed.

  Yikes.

  I’d completely forgotten about her. I don’t even know when she broke away from me and made her way through the crowd to go to her brother.

  Who definitely looks surprised right now.

  He even stands up from his kingly perch just as Tempest launches herself at him. Squealing, she wraps her arms and legs around him and hugs him tight.

  And right in front of my eyes, I see a new side of Reed.

  A side that hugs his sister back just as tightly. A side that smiles — a true smile — and laughs when his sister moves away and doesn’t stop talking. A side that looks at her with a fondness that I’ve never seen before.

  Or rather, that I’ve only seen on my brothers’ faces when I surprise them with a new pair of knitted socks or some chocolate chip cookies.

  Right in front of my eyes, I discover that Reed Roman Jackson, the gorgeous villain, my brother’s rival and enemy, loves his little sister.

  Something moves in my chest at this.

  Something achy and swollen.

  And God, I have to leave now.

  I have to.

  The longer I stay here, the more restless I feel. The more likely it becomes that someone might recognize me and tell Ledger.

  It bugs me to leave Tempest like this because I really like her. But I have to go.

  So taking a deep breath and with a last look at Tempest talking to Reed, who’s chuckling, I turn around and start walking.

  I hunch my shoulders and duck my head, trying to make myself as invisible as possible so no one pays me any attention. Although I’m not sure that I’m walking in the right direction or the direction that I came from.

  But it’s okay.

  I’ll find my way out.

  So I keep walking, my feet crunching the leaves, until I leave the party behind and get deeper into the trees.

  It should be kinda scary to be walking around the woods in the dark. But I grew up here, in this town. Even though I’ve never really ventured into these woods, I know I’ll be safe.

  Well, I know that until I hear a noise.

  A series of noises actually.

  They’re not loud or anything. It’s just that the woods are quiet and so they seem loud. They seem urgent and needy.

  And oh my God I come to a halt.

  My heart is banging inside my chest. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up because what the heck is going on?

  What…

  A twig snaps next. Then a moan comes, followed by heavy breathing.

  A second later though when I hear a grunt — a manly grunt — everything becomes clear.

  Oh my God.

  Someone — a guy — is doing something to a girl.

  Isn’t he?

  This is what’s happening. A stupid drunk guy is doing something to an innocent girl and I need to go help her.

  That’s why my brothers are always worried. Because this is what happens at high school parties. Guys drink and go crazy and think they can do whatever they want to a girl.

  Well, not on my watch.

  He doesn’t know what’s coming for him.

  Me.

  I’m coming for him and I know how to punch.

  Yeah, that’s right. I know how to throw a mean, mean punch – four brothers, remember? – and he’s getting it.

  Right in his face.

  Swallowing down my fear, I start to walk toward the noises.

  I’m trying to be as quiet as possible.

  I don’t want that animal to know that I’m coming for him. I’m gonna take him by surprise. That’s the best way to do the most damage. That’s what my brothers taught me.

  But as it turns out, I don’t think I’ll be using any of the punching skills that I learned from my brothers.

  Because there is no drunk guy and no innocent girl.

  I mean, he could be drunk and she could be innocent but he’s not doing anything to her that she doesn’t want. In fact, she seems pretty into it, what he’s doing to her. Which is kissing.

  He’s kissing her and she’s kissing him back.

  They’re standing under a tree and there are a couple of candles around them. A blanket, beers.

  Oops.

  I think I crashed a date. Which is completely escalating right now.

  Now that I’m close and thankfully hiding behind a tree of my own, I can hear more noises. Chuckles, rustling of their clothes, a few murmurs.

  And gosh, I can see stuff too.

  Their hands and legs and their mouths. It’s like they’re attacking each other — happily but attacking nonetheless with their lips and limbs.

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before.

  What I mean is that I have seen people kiss before even though I’ve never been kissed myself. But this is something… else.

  This is passion and lust and rawness and holy God, I can’t stop looking and I know…

  My thoughts break when I hear another noise.

  Or rather a voice.

  I hear a voice.

  A voice saying, “You like that, huh?”

  It’s rich and smooth. Deep.

  God, so deep.

  It makes me think of taking a dive off a skyscraper. It’s strange that a voice can invoke such imagery and such a reckless, dangerous image at that.
But I swear I feel the rush of air on my body, the adrenaline pumping through my veins as if I’m really flying.

  Just because I heard a voice. His voice.

  It’s his. I know.

  Even though it has never been directed at me, I’ve heard it before, and without volition, memorized it. And now it’s here.

  The voice. Him.

  And before I can think anything else, assess the situation or even absorb it, I spin around.

  As if a string is looped around my body, and he holds the other end. And he’s tugging it viciously, making me spin like the ballerina that I am.

  And there he is again.

  A lot closer to me than he’s ever been.

  Reed Roman Jackson.

  The first time I saw him, off the soccer field I mean – I’d seen him play plenty of times before that – was my first day at Bardstown High.

  It was during my lunch period.

  I was trying to find the administration office without having to bother either Ledger or Conrad for every little thing, and despite being given very explicit directions leading to it, I think I took a wrong turn somewhere.

  I ended up in a deserted sort of hallway with only a few lingering students in it.

  I was trying to find my way back when I stumbled upon an empty classroom.

  Well, empty except for two people.

  One of which was him.

  That was the first time I’d seen him out of his green and white soccer uniform, without sweat dripping from his brows and without a vicious flush covering his features from running across the field.

  In fact, it was the first time I’d seen his features clearly and not from a distance.

  The first time I’d seen how breathtakingly beautiful he was. How his features, sharp and angled, were designed to make your heart ache as soon as you looked at him.

  Heartbreakingly beautiful. That’s what I thought in that moment.

  Also, tall.

  It was something I’d never realized before, his towering frame.

  I remember thinking that Reed Roman Jackson was the tallest guy I’d ever seen. Taller than even my brothers, and my brothers are some of the tallest people I know.

  In his white hoodie, something else that I saw for the first time, Reed stood leaning against the wall by the whiteboard and God, the top of his head almost reached up to the edge of it. His head was slightly thrown back, exposing the masculine bulge of his Adam’s apple and the strained veins running down the side of his neck.

  Oh, and his eyes were closed and his jaw was tight.

  At first, I didn’t get why.

  I didn’t get why he’d be standing there with his eyes closed like that, his jaw tight before loosening up and his mouth parting on a quiet breath.

  At first, I also thought that he was alone.

  But then I heard a sound — a moan — and I realized that there was a girl in the room with him. And she was on her knees, almost hidden by the teacher’s desk, in front of him.

  That’s when I knew.

  That the girl he was with was… you know, doing stuff to him. And before I could stop myself, I gasped.

  I gasped loudly and as soon as I did, they heard it.

  The girl stopped doing stuff to him and a frown appeared between his brows.

  To this day, I know he was going to open his eyes a second later. And when he did, his gaze would land directly on me. So I ran. I didn’t wait for them to figure out that someone was watching them and that it was me.

  I ran and saved myself that day.

  I don’t think I can save myself now.

  I don’t even think I can run. And it becomes even harder when another moan comes from behind me.

  This one particularly loud and needy and like an idiot, idiot, I gasp like I did the first time I saw him.

  But unlike that time, I’m not hiding behind a door and his eyes aren’t closed.

  They are open and they are on me and at my gasp, his eyes, those pretty wolf eyes, glint. His lips, ruby-red and plush, tip up slightly too.

  And I don’t think I’ve ever felt more exposed in my life.

  More seen and vulnerable and trapped and… thrilled, all at the same time, and I think I almost explode with all the jumbled emotions when I hear, “Oh God, Justin. Stop fucking around and put it in already.”

  And I think he knows it.

  The guy who’s standing in front of me and watching me through all this.

  Because out of nowhere he jars every cell in my body when he calls out, “Hey Justin!”

  This time I don’t even bother stopping myself or castigating myself for doing it, I just gasp.

  Nor do I stop myself from widening my eyes and questioning him with them: What are you doing?

  He seems to hear my unspoken question and he answers me in the most non-traditional sense ever.

  Without breaking our gaze, he calls out again, “Take it somewhere else.” He pauses for a few seconds as squeaks and curses break out. “You’re corrupting good little freshman girls.”

  I wince at his description and his smirk grows.

  That was not fair.

  I’m not a good little freshman girl.

  I mean, I am. But he didn’t have to say it in such a condescending manner. In a manner that makes me feel like an innocent, inexperienced flower.

  Which again, I am, but still.

  “Freshman?” A male voice – Justin – answers. “How’d a freshman get in here?”

  Reed’s mouth twists into a sardonic smile as he answers Justin while still looking at me. “Maybe this year’s crop’s sneakier than we thought.”

  This time the girl speaks. “Well, kick them out! They’re boring. And God, they’re so easily shocked.”

  My mouth falls open.

  That is not true.

  We’re not easily shocked.

  Reed finds my reaction highly amusing and a small chuckle escapes him. “Yeah, they are. Aren’t they?” I glare at him but that only makes him chuckle once again. “So that’s why you need to take your X-rated show somewhere else. Let them dream about birds and bees for one more night.”

  I’m outraged at this.

  Outraged and offended.

  Who does he think I am? And why the heck is he talking about me like I’m not even here?

  Justin doesn’t find it offensive, however. He thinks it’s funny, and so does the girl, who giggles and replies, “Hate to break it to you, Reed. But as annoying as freshmen are, I think they know how babies are made.”

  Somehow, his animal eyes grow even more potent and I’m forced to take a step back.

  Not that I have anywhere to go really.

  My spine is pretty much stuck to the tree I was hiding behind.

  And he knows that.

  His eyes flick to the ground to gauge the distance between us before lifting back to my face. “Yeah? Well, this one looks a little too daisy fresh. I’m not sure she can handle your sex ed class without passing out. So fuck off.”

  I think I just pulled a muscle.

  Because this is the hardest that I’ve frowned and glared and pursed my lips at someone, the hardest and the longest.

  Meanwhile his friends, who still don’t know that I’m standing here, listening in, chuckle and laugh and make crude comments from behind me.

  When they’re done though, they scramble off.

  Leaving me alone with him.

  The guy who’s staring at me like I’m the most interesting thing he has seen tonight. The most interesting thing he’s ever seen, actually, and now that I’m in his clutches, he can’t wait to play with me.

  He can’t wait to open me up, unravel me, take me apart.

  He can’t wait.

  “I’m not daisy fresh,” I say and regret it soon after.

  This is what I say to him, this.

  Of all the things I could’ve said, like how dare you talk about me while I was standing r
ight here or how dare you sneak up on me — because he did sneak up on me, right? — I say the most asinine thing ever.

  I go to take it back.

  But no words come out of my mouth because he chooses that very moment to move his eyes.

  Which makes me realize that he hasn’t looked anywhere else except my face ever since he got here.

  He’s changing that now though.

  He’s slowly making his way down my swallowing, hiccupping throat, my heavily breathing chest.

  Even though there’s very little light, I know he can see me clearly.

  I think it’s his wolf eyes; they can see in the dark.

  They can see everything: my cardigan that I knitted myself – it’s early February and unusually un-winter-like weather that only requires a light sweater – and my dress.

  When his eyes move over it, I realize something else too.

  Something both silly and important.

  Daisies.

  I’m wearing daisies.

  My dress has printed daisies on it. That’s why he said that.

  Oh, and it’s white, my dress.

  Holy crap.

  Lost in the woods, I’m dressed in his favorite color — white — and he’s staring at me in a way that makes him look like a predator. Part human, part wolf, who hunts unsuspecting girls like me.

  Girls foolish enough to wander alone at midnight.

  “I beg to differ,” he drawls when he finishes his perusal and comes back up to my face. “You look daisy fresh to me.”

  See?

  Predator.

  Beautiful, gorgeous… predator.

  I fist my dress and press my back into the tree. Raising my chin, I try to look more experienced even though I’m anything but. “And I’m not a freshman either.”

  “Is that so?”

  Look at that tone, so condescending.

  God, I hate him.

  Also, I hate myself for saying that.

  But now that I have, I’m going to stay the course, because backing down would be even more cowardly.

  “Yes,” I tell him. “I mean I am. But I should’ve been a sophomore. I repeated a year. And so I’m older and hence wiser. I’m about to turn sixteen in three months.”

  All true.

  I did repeat a year. Back when my mom had been sick and eventually died of cancer.

  Everything had fallen on Conrad, who was only eighteen at the time and a freshman in college. He had so many, many balls to juggle back then, what with my mom’s deteriorating health, getting a job, keeping the house, taking care of my brothers and me – well, all my brothers chipped in and helped with me, but they were all kids themselves – that perfect attendance wasn’t very high on the list.