Wild Girl: A High School Bully Romance (Slateview High Book 2) Read online

  There were no servants. No fancy food or drinks. We didn’t even have presents.

  Our dinner was self-served on paper plates, and instead of a hired orchestra, we listened to radio music and watched old Christmas cartoons.

  But as far as I was concerned?

  This was the best damn Christmas I’d ever had.

  Sixteen

  My house, over the course of winter break, became the go-to place for the Lost Boys.

  If there was one good thing to come out of my mom being gone for the holiday break, it was that the three boys could come and go as they pleased, without needing to worry about what Mom would say. I even gave Bish a spare key so they could come in late at night after jobs without having to crawl in through the window.

  In my old life, I’d been used to a pristine house, with nothing left out of place and everything unsightly tucked away where no one could see it.

  But there was something… nice about a house that felt lived in. There was evidence of the three boys everywhere, signs that the four of us shared the space, practically living together by now.

  Ever since Christmas, I felt like I’d gained a bit of clarity.

  I couldn’t pretend that my family was ever going to go back to normal—especially not after learning what my mom was up to in her spare time.

  But that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to patch things up. That I shouldn’t try to patch things up. I wanted my father out of jail. No matter how fucked up the rest of this was, he didn’t deserve to be there, stuck behind bars while his wife cheated on him.

  I hadn’t given up on my quest to figure out what had put my father in jail in the first place. When I’d last visited him, he’d still insisted he had been set up, and I was sure if I could find out who was behind it, I could prove his innocence.

  Nathaniel wasn’t the person who’d framed my dad. I was sure of it. If the Lost Boys had been responsible for planting evidence for the Feds to find when they investigated my dad, I was sure they would’ve told me about it by now. Maybe not at first, when they’d hated me, but things had changed so much since then.

  Still, I was convinced that whoever had gone after my dad was someone who existed in the same world as Nathaniel. And that meant Nathaniel was my best lead.

  I couldn’t go to the man himself. It would be way too risky. Not because I thought he would attack me like Flint had, but because I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to take me out if I presented any threat to his organization.

  It would be almost as risky to try asking Josephine, although I considered calling her and trying to subtly shift the conversation to my father and his arrest. Ultimately, I decided against it though. She had seemed open and kind, but she obviously loved her husband. She would do whatever she had to in order to protect him, just like I would for the Lost Boys. I admired that, but it meant I could never completely trust her.

  The one thing I could do, however, was snoop.

  A week before school was scheduled to start back up, the Lost Boys left in the early afternoon to meet up with Nathaniel. I kissed them all goodbye, and as soon as the front door closed, I glanced quickly around the living room.

  They’d been spending so much time here that most of their personal effects had ended up here too. Misael’s backpack leaned against the couch, and I started there, digging through it carefully to see if I could find anything useful.

  Guilt rose up in my chest—how could I say I was falling in love with these boys and sneak around behind their backs, rifle through their things? How could I violate their trust like this?

  But I couldn’t just let Dad languish in prison without trying to help. And I knew the Lost Boys wouldn’t stand for even the mention of me wanting to poke my nose into this any further. Bishop had made it perfectly clear how he felt, and I couldn’t blame him for hating my father.

  So I would keep my search from them for a little while longer.

  There was a note stuffed into one of Misael’s textbooks with an address, a name, and a small “N” written in the corner. Probably the details of some job they’d had for Nathaniel.

  Grabbing the notes, I hopped up and darted into the bedroom, reaching under my mattress for the small notebook I kept hidden there. With the boys almost always in close proximity to me, I picked up bits and pieces about what they were doing. Names that sounded familiar, I jotted down. If something sounded like it could be a lead, I jotted that down too.

  I flipped the little book open to a blank page and copied down the information, then returned to the living room to put the note back where I’d found it.

  As I began to stuff the books back into the backpack, a noise outside the house caught my attention. A car engine cutting off.

  Footsteps.

  Fuck.

  My heart lurched in my chest, and I leapt to my feet, adrenaline pouring through me so fast that it made me feel lightheaded.

  It wasn’t my mom. It couldn’t be. She wouldn’t be home for another week.

  With shaking hands, I pushed the backpack up against the side of the couch where I’d found it, darting into the kitchen just as the door opened.

  “Hey, Coralee,” Bish called. “Forgot something.”

  Jesus. That was fucking close.

  I wasn’t dumb enough not to know what a violation of trust it was that I’d been going through their things while they were gone—and I had almost just gotten caught. Panic and guilt raged through me as I gripped the edge of the counter so hard my knuckles went white.

  “Yeah?” I called out, trying to keep my voice even.

  He poked his head into the kitchen. “Yeah. Had to circle back and pick up a payment that I need to deliver for Nathaniel. I left it in my jeans.” He grinned. “Y’know, the ones you were so eager to yank off me last night.”

  I flushed and rolled my eyes, and Bishop’s grin grew sinful before he continued.

  “Misael had something to take care of with his foster family, so we’re just gonna head out in about an hour.” He glanced around the kitchen. “Want lunch?”

  “Yeah.” I unclamped my hand from the counter, turning to face him fully. “That sounds good. I think there are sandwich-makings in the fridge.”

  “Works for me.” He rapped his knuckles once against the doorframe. “Let me just grab this envelope so I don’t forget it again, then I’ll come help you.”

  “Okay.”

  He turned to head toward my bedroom, and I moved toward the fridge, trying to get my heart to settle down as my thoughts turned to what kind of ingredients we had on hand.

  But before my hand settled on the refrigerator door, realization struck me like a bolt of lightning.

  My notebook. It was still sitting out on my bed.

  Shit!

  I wheeled, about to dash toward my room, even though I knew there was no way I could beat Bishop there, when a single word stopped me.

  “Cora?”

  His voice was sharp. Harsh. A tone I hadn’t heard in months.

  I froze like a deer in front of an oncoming truck, lips going suddenly dry. A second later, Bishop walked slowly back into the room, holding my notebook in his hands.

  I was sure I paled at the sight; I could feel the blood drain from my face. My body went cold as I watched him flip through the pages, heavily inked in my research and machinations about what I was going to do to help my father.

  A muscle in his jaw ticked, and his mouth set in a sharp frown as he read over it.

  I was silent. I didn’t know what to say, or how to justify my actions. The little black notebook Bishop was holding in his hands represented a betrayal on so many levels.

  “What is this?” he asked after a moment, his voice thick. “Cora… what the hell is this?”

  Somehow, I forced words past my rapidly closing throat. “It’s just… it’s just some thoughts—”

  “Cora, these are names you shouldn’t know!” he exploded. “Shit you shouldn’t have any idea about! These are full-blown plans to poke around Nathani
el Ward and his wife about your father!”

  His voice cracked like a whip, anger in every word, and each one seemed to hit me right in the chest.

  It was the first time Bishop had ever yelled at me. Even when he’d hated me, even when he had despised me for my father’s actions, he had spoken to me in smooth, controlled tones. The sound of his fury fixed me in place, silent and unmoving.

  But Bishop wasn’t frozen like I was. He stalked forward, his voice rising, his hazel eyes flashing.

  “Don’t you fuckin’ get it? This shit is bigger than Flint—and, hell, after everything that happened with Flint, why are you still poking your nose where it doesn’t belong? Why are you still insisting on trying to help your father? You were almost raped and fuckin’ killed—”

  “You think I don’t know that?!” I couldn’t let him keep going on. Couldn’t let him keep telling me what I already knew. “You think I don’t consider every day what might have happened to me? About what Flint would have done to me? Do you really think I’m that stupid, Bishop?”

  He scoffed, tossing the book away from him.

  “I’m beginning to question your intelligence and your sanity, given how little you seem to care about your own safety, Princess.”

  The word had the same harsh quality it’d had when he and the others had first started calling me by that nickname—back before it was an endearment of any kind.

  Anger rose up, mixing with my guilt and fear in a hurricane of emotions that threatened to drown me.

  “You have no right to tell me what to do about this,” I gritted out. “No right at all! Not when you’re running around breaking and entering and stealing and doing who knows what else in your spare time. You don’t get to lecture me about my family, Bish. Especially not about this.”

  He shook his head, the movement dangerous and slow, like a bull about to charge.

  “Cora, this isn’t a game. You seem to keep treatin’ it like it is, like if you keep pokin’ and proddin’, eventually everything is just going to fall in line for you. But that’s not how the real world fucking works. It’s not, never has, never will, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. I don’t know what the fuck I need to do to make you see that—”

  “You can’t make me do shit, Bishop Madigan!” I snapped, my emotions overriding common sense.

  He had every right to be mad at me—and he was mad, I could see it in every tense line of his body—but at this moment, I was mad too. I was angry at the whole damn world, furious at Flint for betraying my misplaced trust, pissed at whoever had put my father behind bars and set this whole fucked-up chain of events in motion.

  I was sick of feeling helpless and powerless, of going through life constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  I couldn’t keep the boys safe.

  I couldn’t keep my father safe.

  I couldn’t even keep myself safe, and I hated that feeling more than anything.

  Bishop’s expression hardened, his body going too still. “You don’t think so, Princess? You don’t think I can stop you if I want to?”

  The look in his eyes ignited an instinctual impulse in me, a prey animal’s urge to run when a predator gets too close. But I fought down the urge to bolt, keeping my back straight and glaring up at him.

  “I don’t think you will.”

  With that, I moved to shove past him, but quick as a snake, his hand whipped out and wrapped around my upper arm. He pulled me back against him, the warm strength of his body overwhelming mine as my back pressed against his chest. “You’re wrong as hell about that,” he muttered, his voice dark. “Did you forget our agreement? You’re ours. That means this isn’t your fuckin’ decision to make.”

  “I never agreed to that!” I yanked my arms out of his grip, and the second he released me, I whirled on him, shoving at his chest with both hands. “I never agreed to let you run my whole fucking life!”

  “No, you just agreed to fuck the three of us and let us save your life when you threw yourself headfirst into danger,” he growled, catching me by the wrists.

  My heart stuttered in my chest, the crassness of his harsh words slicing through me like a blade. It made me think of my mother’s accusations, her insistence that my relationship with the Lost Boys was the same as her fucked up affair with Mark Jemison.

  I struggled against Bish’s hold, glaring up into his hazel eyes as I panted for breath.

  “Well, if your current acquisition is such a pain in your ass, why don’t you just find someone else to control and stop worrying about what I do?”

  “Because I don’t want anyone else!”

  The words exploded out of him, and he wrestled my arms behind my back, holding them there as he pinned me against the counter.

  We were chest to chest, both breathing hard, as the air around us seemed to pulse with electric energy.

  “How the fuck long is it gonna take you to figure that out, huh, Princess? There is no one else I want. No one but you.” Anger still colored his words, but something else infused his tone too, something that made goose bumps rise along my skin. His eyes burned like twin flames as he stared down at me, unblinking. “I. Need. You. And I need you to fuckin’ stay alive.”

  I stared back at him, rendered speechless by the look on his face. He looked… pained. Desperate.

  And terrified.

  “Fuck,” I whispered. I blinked, and in that split second, the entire encounter with Flint flashed before my eyes.

  Only this time, I saw it from the Lost Boys’ perspective.

  I saw the horrifying scene they had come upon in the alley. I saw the unerring way Kace had raised the gun and fired. I saw all three of them lay their lives on the line for me.

  Because they cared about me.

  Because they needed me.

  “Fuck.”

  My voice broke on the word, and I pulled against Bishop’s grip, reaching up to cup his face in both hands the moment he released me.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Bishop. I’m so fucking sorry.”

  I had known. I had always known, in a way.

  But even as I had processed Flint’s death, even as I’d worried obsessively about the boys getting caught for something they had done to protect me, I had never let myself fully absorb the weight of what they’d done. I had never acknowledged what it meant for them.

  For us.

  Bishop froze, blinking back the emotions I could still see churning in his eyes.

  “I can’t lose you, Cora,” he murmured. He shook his head, his jaw clenching. “We can’t lose you.”

  Then he palmed the back of my head and dragged me toward him, kissing me so hard my lips banged against my teeth.

  I tasted the coppery tang of blood, but I hardly even noticed it. My tongue slid out to clash with his as I pressed up onto my tiptoes, grabbing onto his shoulders for balance.

  Our kiss was fire—fierce and painful and purifying.

  His large hands groped me everywhere as I moved against him, our bodies pushing and pulling, grinding against each other. We kissed until the world seemed to disappear around me, until my lips were bruised and numb, until I thought I might die from lack of oxygen.

  When Bishop finally wrenched his mouth away from mine, he spun me quickly to face the counter, his arms coming around me so he could tear open my jeans and shove them down my thighs. Cool air met bare skin, and I sucked in a jerky breath as I heard the rustling of fabric and the metallic hiss of a zipper behind me.

  A second later, his cock found my entrance. He let out a low noise as his shaft began to sink into my wet heat, and that was all the preamble I got before he thrust in hard, filling me completely.

  I arched my back, bracing my forearms on the counter as his hips met my ass. His upper body draped over mine, one hand massaging my breasts roughly, as he slid into me over and over, plunging deeper with every thrust.

  This wasn’t a sweet fuck.

  It wasn’t gentle.

  It wasn’t roma
ntic.

  It wasn’t even about pleasure.

  But it was the closest the two of us had ever come to making love.

  Because whether either of us were ready to admit it or not, that was the emotion driving us as we fucked hard and fast against the kitchen counter in my Mom’s dingy house.

  It was what made my whole body convulse as I came hard on his cock.

  It was what made his fingers dig into the flesh of my hip, what made him turn my head to steal another bruising kiss as he came too, flooding me with his cum.

  When the aftershocks finally abated, we collapsed forward on the counter, still connected, both gasping for breath.

  Nothing about it was comfortable. The counter edge dug into my hip, my head was bent at an awkward angle with my cheek resting against the cool surface, and Bishop’s weight against me made it hard to move, almost hard to breathe.

  But still, when he rose up to pull out of me, my body cried out in protest, and a whine escaped my lips.

  He gave a low chuckle, then peeled me up off the counter, turning me back around to face him. His eyes were serious, the anger still present but faded.

  “You okay? Was that too rough?”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t sure how to explain to this boy that I didn’t know if there was such a thing. No matter how roughly or violently we came together, my body always craved more, as if it would never be fully satisfied until we found a way to smash our atoms together and somehow fuse our souls into one.

  “I’m okay,” I whispered.

  He dipped his head a little, studying me intently for a moment as if making sure I wasn’t lying or hiding anything. Then he nodded, satisfied. Scooping me up, he carried me to the bathroom, setting me down on the edge of the sink before grabbing a towel to clean me up.

  He helped me rearrange my clothes, then tugged up his own pants, adjusting himself and re-zipping his fly. Silence hung between us for a moment, filled with all the emotions that’d been released by our desperate, fast fuck.

  Finally, Bishop dipped his head, meeting my gaze with serious eyes.