Malum part 2

Bailey holds up her hands. “Wait! I have a Polaroid!”

“A fucking what what?” Eli asks, his eyes narrowing in on her. She blushes from his attention.

“Leave her alone, baby cakes.” I glare at Eli before going back to Bailey. “Go grab it!”

She escapes into the house and I turn back to Eli. He’s still glaring at me. His pretty features morphing into disgust.

“Did you just call me baby cakes?”

Everyone around the table bursts out laughing, bar Eli.

I giggle, bringing the glass to my mouth as Bailey reappears, a smile on her face and lifting a metallic grey square looking camera that looks like it’s straight out of the 70s.

We snap multiple photos with both the Polaroid and our phones. I lean into Bailey as we grab a few selfies. Then Nate yanks me into his arms and Bailey snaps multiple photos as he’s doing so, even as he bites onto my nose tip.

She shrugs, holding her phone. “Action shots.”

I look up at Nate. He licks his lips.

“We promised…” I whisper.

“I’ve promised a lot of fucking things in my lifetime, baby. And none of them involve staying away from you.”

I push off his chest, (his very naked and hot chest), needing space. And air. Because he does things to me.

“Yes, you did.”

“Then for once, you can call me a fucking liar.”

I’m exhausted. This isn’t love. It’s pure and undiluted possession. He doesn’t need to throw me around to possess me, his soul attached itself to mine a long time ago, and now I can’t breathe with the thought of being too far away from him.

Can you spell vulnerable? Vulnerab—I can’t. Mainly because bourbon, but also because of something else. Something that tugs at my chest every time his eyes meet mine, or anytime that he’s in the same room as me, or any time that he’s angry at me, or sad with me, or happy with me, or playful with me—fuck.

I swallow the rest of my drink.

I am completely, utterly, and irrevocably in love with him.

The room spins around me. I knew I was in love with him before, but that was different. I knew I had these feelings toward him, but I didn’t know what to do with them. Now that I’ve accepted these feelings, what the fuck do I do? He will never want to settle down. Ever. He’s Nate Riverside-Malum. His cock may had been bounced around on a lot, (high fucking traffic zone), but his heart and his soul? Completely unattainable. Now that I’ve found myself in this pool of feelings for him, I’m afraid I might drown in them. He can never know, because he doesn’t take me seriously. He banters with me, sure, but that’s all it is, and even I know that there’s no way I’d ever be allowed into his heart and soul. People think that he would fall in love easily because he likes to fuck around, but that’s not true at all. He gave his cock freely—to girls who he deemed worthy—for his pleasure. Putting love on the table will never be in his cards, he kept his heart in a cage.

“Tillie?” Bailey laughs, swiping the tears. “Thoughts?”

“On?” I ask, gulping past my revelations. I reach for the ridiculously expensive bourbon.

“If you had to have sex with Joh

I shake my head. “Stop right there…”

Bailey tilts her head and the table falls quiet.

“I will always do Joh

The table laughs and Bailey giggles. “See! Okay, so if you had to choose one of his characters to have sex with, who would it be?”

“Easy, Jack Sparrow…”

Bailey’s lips pinch in.

“Why?” I ask, eyebrows raised. “Who did you pick?”

“…Edward Scissorhands?”

I almost spit out my drink. “What?” Then I start laughing, my tummy hurting. “Why? I couldn’t be more shocked if you had said Willy Wonka!”

She shrugs. “Well, he would be my second choice!”

Girl is weird as fuck, which is why I love her.

Love. I wrap my lips around the rim of the bourbon bottle, fake laughing as I take gulps.

“Alright…” Bishop says, gri

“Oh no…”

Bailey’s eyes light up in glee. This girl is so much like her twisted cousin she has no idea.

Bishop rolls his eyes. “It’s nothing like that…”

I sag in my seat. “Okay. Shoot.”

An hour later we’re all strapped up with vests and helmets and little light boxes that are flashing on our chests.

“Seriously…”

“You wanted something normal, Stuprum. Laser tag is about as normal as we get.”

“It’s not laser tag because you’re using bullets…”

“Not real bullets.” Nate rolls his eyes, and I only know that he rolls his eyes because the spotlight on my helmet is faced directly at him. His sharp jaw and articulate features only accentuated under the shadows behind the light.

“They are paintballs, still bullets!” I huff, irritation palpable.

Nate leans over and licks my face. “Stop talking. It makes my dick twitchy.”

I glare at him.

There are two teams. Me, Bishop, Nate, Abel, Chase, and Cash on this team, and Brantley, Bailey, Eli, Hunter, and Ace, on their team. Saint is still a touchy subject, since he disappeared a couple of months ago. Nate had said he had gone rogue, which makes me sad.

“Alright!” Chase snaps at all of us, his long blonde hair tied into a top knot. His eyes narrow on me. “Stop laughing at me Stuprum…”

“I’m sorry, you’re just so pretty.”

“You can braid my hair if you help us win…” He winks.

I straighten. “Let’s do this shit.”

We figure out a game plan and then go our separate ways. The forest blankets me in its darkness, spilling around my feet like a dead river, probably filled with the damn Loch Ness monster.

An arm wraps around my waist and pulls me against a hard chest.

I spin around, smacking Nate. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“We can’t fuck again.”

“I know,” I snap, shoving his chest. “Why did you have to scare the shit out of me just to say that?” My heart sinks.

“Just making it clear so you stop looking at me like I’m a fucking snack and you’ve been starved all your life.”

You’re a six-course meal, not a fucking snack.

“Whatever.” I turn in my steps, raising my gun up and looking through the scope.

I leave him behind, confused about the arbitrariness of his words, but it only settles the fact that I can’t express the way I feel about him to him. I’m not ready to say it and he’s not ready to hear it.

I raise my gun at movement that shuffles through the bushes and a flash of green swipes through the blackness like a neon headlight. I shoot. Bang Bang Bang. Anger at Nate ripples through me. I jog to where I hit and smirk down at Ace, his black hair falling over his face.

“Fuck me, Stuprum. You trigger happy or what?”

“I’m trigger happy.”

The light on his chest flips to the word “Shot” that flash over his small screen, and then I help him up and watch as he heads back to the house.

Something smashes against my back and I yelp, spi

“Alright!” I yell, falling to the ground.

Whoever shot me doesn’t come to check on me, so I stand, rubbing off the dirt and make my way back to the cabin. There’s a fire that’s been started in the pit and I rip the vest off me, tossing it to the ground while snatching the familiar bottle of bourbon from Brantley.

“I hate this game.”

He chuckles. “Same.”

My eyes go to Ace. “Sorry about shooting you.”

He shrugs, just as Bailey comes stumbling down the stairs. “Why is there three on your team here and only one from my team?”