Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Allie

Watching Moore tie my duffel bag to the back of his motorcycle, my pulse flaps like the wings of a dove in my neck. This is happening. I’m leaving home. I’m getting out and I’m never coming back. And Moore Dunnegan, my tormentor, is helping me. The fact that I’m being aided by the person who called me a future trophy wife this morning makes this moment even more surreal.

He’s had this stricken expression on his face for the last half an hour that’s stupidly making me want to apologize. For what, though? I don’t know. I don’t owe him an apology and yet, I have this pressing need to wrap my arms around his neck and tell him everything is going to be okay.

When it comes to my bully, my emotions have never been truly in sync. One second I hate him and the next, I’m whimpering his name into my pillow, my fingers sawing against the wet cotton of my panties. My feelings for him are extremely confusing…but I know asking him to back off was the right move.

Even if I’ll secretly miss his presence everywhere I turn.

In my world of unpredictability, there was something comforting about knowing he would always be there. Watching me. Hating me. Wanting me.

That last part was never in doubt.

He’s made that clear many times. That if I gave him the green light, he would “put me on my back and do me dirty” or “give me a nice long hate-fuck in the back of his trailer.” And he’d always say, “No one has to know, baby,” in that winded, guttural tone that keeps me up at night. Makes me shove my fingers down the front of my panties and struggle to breathe, sweating through my bedclothes to an orgasm.

I’m thinking about those particularly sexual taunts when he looks over at me and I don’t quite manage to hide the conflicted lust. His movements slow, a dark eyebrow arching as he peruses my mouth, my breasts. I’m a certified hot mess right now. Beaten and bloody, but there’s no denying he’s still attracted, regardless.

It’s always there in the hurried rise and fall of his chest, the shifting of his throat muscles. The tenting of his jeans.

How many times have I turned in class and—avoiding his gaze—locked eyes with the swollen ridge in his pants instead?

At least that’s one thing us poor motherfuckers have going for us.

We know how to fuck.

Well if I thought sympathy was an odd emotion to have toward this boy, jealousy is even more confusing. Why should I care that he’s been with other people? Obviously he must have been with countless girls to get good at sex. It’s none of my business, is it? I’m almost rid of him. And I don’t want to be jealous.

Still, when he holds out his hand to help me onto the bike, I ignore it with a raise of my chin and climb on myself. Cheating jerk, I whisper inside my head, even though it makes no sense. None at all. We’re not together, so he can’t cheat on me.

You’re almost rid of him.

Get a ride and say goodbye.

Unfortunately, I may have been a little overzealous in asking to be taken to a motel. I’ve never been to one, but I know a credit card is usually required—and I don’t have one of those. Nor do I have enough cash in my wallet for more than one night. I need to figure out an alternative plan fast.

Still looking damnably stricken, Moore places his helmet on my head and gently buckles the chinstrap. Swallowing loud enough to hear over the storm rolling in, the low rumble of thunder in the distance. Helmetless, he slings a sturdy denim leg over the front of the bike and brings the engine to life, the purring vibration so unexpectedly exhilarating, I wrap my arms around his middle on reflex.

His ribcage expands to capacity, then shudders down.

“Allie…”

He can’t see me, so I give in to the impulse to press my cheek to his leather jacket, absorbing the warmth. “Yes?”

Moore clears his throat, his voice emerging deeper. “My aunt has a cabin a few towns over. Near the lake.” He pauses. “They only use it in the summer. It’s stocked with canned goods, supplies. I could take you there. You’d be safe.”

It’s dangerous to start accepting more favors from him, but what choice do I have? My father made sure that I’m helpless. He did it with my mother and now me. Alienated us from everyone who might be a friend or good Samaritan. I’ll accept his offer, but only because here and now, I’m vowing to find a way to help myself in the future. To leave my father and the house of horrors in the past. Maybe it can’t be done entirely alone. Maybe accepting help is the only option.

“That would be great,” I say, feeling him relax. “Thanks.”

He responds by revving the engine of the bike—and that’s when I hear my father shouting my name from the back door of the house. His hands are tied behind his back and he’s staggering, blood pouring from his nose. “Allie James! You get your ass back here right now or you’ll never be allowed back, you ungrateful bitch!”

My love for storms has never caused one to manifest inside of me, but a monsoon swells in my chest now and I look back at the pathetic old man with every ounce of rebellion brewing inside of me. Baring my teeth, I give him the middle finger and dismiss him. Forever.

“Atta girl,” Moore murmurs a second before gunning the engine, kicking up gravel on the way down the driveway. I don’t look back a single time.

* * *

We drive for half an hour. Twenty minutes on the highway, ten minutes looping our way to a higher elevation. The trees grow more and more dense, the road deserted. The screech of an owl can be heard every so often over the roaring engine of Moore’s bike, the call of a wolf in the distance. We don’t pass a single car on the way to the cabin, and that comforts me when I should be worried.

Shouldn’t I?

I can’t allow the last two years of psychological warfare to mean nothing. To melt away in the face of tonight’s act of kindness. I meant what I said. I need Moore to leave me alone. To release the hold he has on me. I’ve cut one negative force out of my life tonight. The last thing I need is a replacement. But as I grow drowsy against his strong back, his leather and citrus scent lulling me, courting the trust he doesn’t deserve, I worry leaving him by the wayside might be easier said than done.

Especially when we arrive at the moonlit cabin and he lifts me off the bike, cradling me to his chest a moment too long before settling me onto my feet. It’s hard giving up his warmth, but I push off his chest, creating distance between us. He watches me back away like I’m ripping his heart out.

“There is a shower inside,” he says, quietly. “You can finally get the, uh…” He blows a breath out at the sky. “…the blood off.”

Rain begins falling before I can answer.

It’s nothing like the precipitation that falls in my field. No, this rain has to trickle down through the trees and it’s bigger, gloppier. Must be the higher elevation. I hold my hand out and catch a few drops, bringing the moisture to my face and rinsing away the crimson that has dried to my upper lip, the corner of my eye. “There.” I use the hem of my T-shirt to dry my face. “All gone.”

“You’re not hurting anywhere else?”

“I’ll be fine.” Why is he breathing so fast? “What’s wrong, Moore?”

“What’s wrong?” He fights through a shuddering laugh, sliding all ten fingers through his hair. “Where do I start? Most pressing is…I know you’re going to want me to leave you here alone and I don’t think I can. Look, if you want to lock the doors, I’ll sleep outside on the ground, Allie, but please don’t ask me to go.”

He’s right. I was going to tell him it’s fine to head home.

There was a convenience store with a payphone a mile down the road. If there is no working phone in the cabin, I can still make calls, if necessary. I’m not sure what my next move is going to be, now that I’ve run away from home. But I know I’ll never be able to think with a clear head as long as Moore is around, looking at me like a wounded animal.

“Moore…”

“It’s just that once I leave, I know that’s it. You’re going to shut me out again. And this time, it’ll be your choice.” He paces away, still raking those agitated fingers through his pitch-black hair. Rain is starting to come down harder, splattering on the shoulders of his leather jacket, dampening the pine needle-strewn earth at our feet. “I deserve to be cut off. Jesus, I know that. But if there was something I could do to make up the last two years to you, even just a little—”

“There is,” I say, surprising myself. I didn’t plan to say anything. Didn’t know I had a single thing in mind. As soon as those two words are out of my mouth, though, I know there is something I need from Moore. And he’s the only one who can give it to me. “Get yourself out of my system.”

He stands still as a statue. “What?”

“Get yourself out of my system.” The rain makes me speak louder, feel bolder and freer. “For two years you antagonized me, insulted me, stalked me, bullied me…” He makes an anguished sound, his eyelids slamming shut. “And yet, I still—I still can’t stop thinking of your hands on my breasts that night in the field. How big and warm and rough they were. I can’t stop imagining you taking off my clothes. Every stitch. Even the ugliest things you’ve said to me, I imagine you saying them in my ear while you…while we…”

Moore falls toward me a step, clutching the center of his chest. “Allie—”

“So I won’t tell you to leave. But please, please, get yourself out of my head. One night together. Okay, Moore? So I can get on with my life knowing the fantasy was better than reality. That I built up some unrealistic idea of what we’d be like together that we can’t possibly live up to.” My throat constricts. “Get me on the road to forgetting you. Please.”

Lightning flares above his head, revealing the marble planes of his face. The mixture of devastation and flickering hope in his eyes. “And what if the reality lives up to the fantasy?”

“It won’t,” I say quickly, with conviction. It couldn’t possibly.

And yet I suck in a nervous breath when he crosses the divide between us, every cell in my body switching to high alert. Fight or flight. In a matter of moments, he’s gone from wounded animal to determined predator, the rain causing his black hair to hang low over one eye, dripping, his hands ready at his sides. “Are you so sure, Allie?”

Damn my hesitation. “Yes,” I whisper. “You’ll prove me right in one night. I can move forward without feeling like I’m leaving something behind.”

“What if your fantasies come true tonight? Could we ever move forward as…as an us?”

I reel from what he’s suggesting. “There can never be an us, Moore. Not after everything that’s happened. I’ll never change my mind about that.” I shake my head. “How can you think I would?”

“Maybe I think if I will it hard enough, it’ll come true.”

“It won’t,” I whisper, starting to wonder if I’m making a mistake. Opening myself up for even more heartache and yearning for this man than I’ve already lived through. It feels like a lifetime’s worth. “One n-night.”

“No backing out from this point on?”

My heart raps urgently. “No backing out.”

He’s silent so long, I’m not sure he’s going to respond. And then all at once, he moves like a jungle cat, reaching me in two strides and scooping me up into his arms. I think he’s going to bring me into the cabin, but he turns down a starlit path instead, fragrant with rain and pine, his jaw in a hard flex. “I’ve made a study out of you, Allie James. I’ve been hanging on your every sigh, every expression and mood for years. Years. If you don’t think I’ve obsessed weeks of my life away over how you’d like to be fucked, baby, you’re sorely mistaken.”

We reach the lake in a matter of minutes and he doesn’t stop, he just keeps going, splashing right in up to his waist, sinking us both into the warm, late-spring water. The skies have opened up overhead, creating raindrop pings all over the glassy surface. Thunder hums a tune and it carries in the air, electrifying it.

And oh God, I have made a serious miscalculation.

Because this…this drama, the surrounding nature and wild whipping movement of the mountain wind…it’s so perfectly me. He’s showing me exactly what’s always been in my heart and mind when I thought of us together. It’s my fantasy come to life, the two of us wrapped in the arms of the weather. And as he turns me, urging my legs around his waist, his ravenous mouth bearing down on mine, a boom of thunder signals my doom.