A resignation tear probably.
I don’t wait for him to leave as I let my body relax, wishing the dream would end.
Wishing the dream would never end.
Wishing this wasn’t a dream.
12
JEREMY
I don’t know how long I stand at the side of Cecily’s bed.
All I’m sure of is that I remain here, unmoving, watching, observing, long after she falls back asleep with tears rimming her eyes.
I reach out a thumb and wipe away those tears, smear them on the tiny freckles, then crush them between my fingers.
She’s probably sad that it’s not her fucker of a prince who came to claim her in the middle of the night.
Now that she’s asleep, she looks like the personification of inward innocence mixed with a poor relationship with her sensory world.
The worst relationship.
She’s awkward at expressing herself, being spontaneous, and letting go, even when her friends do. I know because I’ve been watching her.
Not up close and personal like following her home from the shelter or the library, but I’ve been around enough to know her schedule, where she goes and with whom.
I took a step back to give her room and see if she’d use the opening to throw herself at Landon again. Color me surprised when they only met within their group of friends and only rarely.
She wasn’t texting him back and forth, vying for his attention like a fangirl either.
What she does, however, is like and comment on each of his pretentious Instagram posts.
I stroke her white hair away from her face. Petite, soft, and with remnants of my dried cum.
The view thickens my erection, lulling me, inviting me to jerk off all over her again—this time, I’d mark her tits and cunt.
Scratch that. This time, I’d claim her cunt.
And I would break her.
I’d stretch her tiny pussy and split it in half.
These tears would turn into a tsunami if I have my way with her. Which is why I’m not.
For now.
My forefinger slides back and forth against my thigh as I caress her hair, sinking between the abnormal color that she had to wear a wig to hide during the initiation. I know because I nearly tore it off.
I know because that’s when I first figured out her identity.
Her lips part and she lets out a small moan, leaning into my touch, almost fucking purring like a cat.
I remove my hand with a jerk.
The fuck is wrong with this girl and her being so out there? And it’s ten times weirder considering her poor relations with the outside world.
It’s why I knew she was drunk when she sent me that DM in which she said she wanted to be chased and taken down.
A message that I’m sure was meant for Landon.
Considering her cowardly tendencies, she wouldn’t have sent that to me or him if she’d been sober.
I was plotting the raid of the Serpents' local compound with the guys when I got that DM.
At first, I threw the phone in my pocket and ignored it, like I’ve been ignoring her for the past couple of weeks.
But like all those days, I fished my phone back out and glared at it. The same way I glared at her from afar.
While I watched her.
Followed her.
Hacked into her phone and computer.
Murdered every shred of her privacy.
Read her fucking journal that’s full of psychological bullshit and Landon.
When I checked my phone again, I found out she’d followed me on Instagram, too. Probably another drunken mistake.
But maybe the DM was meant for me, after all. Not Landon. Me.
That’s all the logic my brain needed to storm out of the meeting and come here.
In the middle of the fucking night.
It’s also what made me climb her balcony, creep inside, and touch her like she was already mine, partially forgetting that my little sister was on the other side of the door.
I should probably leave before one of her gazillion friends comes to check on her, but I don’t move.
Instead, I take time to look around her room, the walls covered in manga pages like some edgy teenager. I move closer and study the names at the top of each, committing them to memory so that I can search what she likes to read.
Then I do a whole sweep of the space.
Cecily’s room is simple—despite the manga wallpaper. Her wardrobe is casual and is full of T-shirts with sarcastic quotes. She owns no dresses or skirts or anything girly.
Her makeup table barely has anything on it aside from different brands of sunscreen. And perfume. Water lilies. I can’t help spraying it into the air and inhaling it.
Smells like Cecily. But not quite. It’s missing the scent of her skin.