14. Cole

Strobe lights flash, music pounding against every wall in the club, and my headache intensifies every minute I stay in this fucking place.

Blaise and Allie are at the bar, and Mia is walking back from the bathroom, her eyes flickering to her boyfriend, to me, then back to the bar.

In her tight little dress, she doesn’t sit where her drinks and bag are, she lowers onto the chair beside me, turning her body so her knees point right at me.

“Can we talk?”

I narrow my eyes. “Talk about what?”

She’s glancing at the bar again. “Not here. Can we slip away and talk? Maybe at the cabin? Your parents aren’t there.”

“Why would I sneak away from my girlfriend to talk to my stepbrother’s girlfriend?”

Nibbling her lip, she fidgets her hands in her lap. “I just thought…maybe…I don’t know? We could talk.”

Her shoulder raises when I blink at her with no words as a response. “Maybe we could try something.”

“Try what? You need to be clearer here, because all I can think is that you want me to fuck you and that’s not happening.”

Her eyes widen to saucers. “That’s not— I mean, we could… I’m…”

“I’m not interested. I’m with Allie. If you drop this, I won’t tell her you’re trying to fuck her boyfriend and you can continue playing the good little angelic girlfriend with the perfect relationship.”

“Allie cheats on you all the time.”

“I’m very aware,” I reply, taking a gulp of my drink. “And it seems you cheat on Blaise too if you’re so eager to get on your knees for me.” I shake my head. “What’s gotten into you? Why are you all of a sudden all over me like a fucking rash? You’re either staring at me, staring at me holding Allie’s hand, or when you’re kissing Blaise, you’re seeing if I’m looking. I don’t get it at all.”

Her voice lowers. “But you’re always looking at me too.”

I pause, because that might come across as true. I’m not looking at her – my eyes are glued to the asshole she’s hanging off of. It’s automatic when I’m near him.

Again, I shake my head. “You’re mistaken. I’m not interested in playing any games with you. How many times do I need to say it before you fuck off back to your own seat and stay on the dick you’re tied to?”

“You’re making me look crazy.”

“If the shoe fits.”

Her face contorts. “Fuck you, Cole.”

“No thanks.” I flatten my lips and my gaze lifts to the bar. “And if you’re trying to be sneaky about whatever it is you’re doing, your loverboy is on his way over with your best friend.”

She darts to her feet and shuffles to her seat, her face going bright red with embarrassment. What’s her deal?

“That took forever,” Allie says, placing drinks on the table while Blaise leans down to whisper something in Mia’s ear. She grins up at him—fake as fuck—and then puts her hands on each side of his face and drags his mouth to hers.

I’m glaring. I know I’m fucking scowling at them. But when Mia opens her eyes mid-kiss, they clash with mine, and I want to snap her neck.

A hand rests on my thigh, and I glance down to see Allie’s manicured nails strumming against my pants. She hums along to the song, her head bobbing, before she turns to look at me. The corner of her lips curls, then she rests her head on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she says over the music. “I know you don’t want me here, but I had to come and try to fix this between us. What can I do?”

I readjust myself on the seat, causing Allie to straighten. Draping my arm behind her chair, I avert my eyes from Blaise eating Mia’s face off while her hand slips down his chest. They’re so open in public. He could finger her right here and neither of them would care about where we are or the audience they’d have.

I don’t want to see it.

“Do you want to go back to the cabin?” I ask Allie.

Her eyes light up. “Really?”

I nod. “Yeah. This place sucks.”

Blaise pulls away from Mia when Allie and I get to our feet. “We’re heading back,” my girlfriend tells them.

“Please stick to having sex on your side of the bed,” Mia says, smiling, but there’s a hint of something vicious in her tone. She glances at me with silent words I have no idea what the fuck mean, then turns back to Blaise.

He’s watching me as I wrap my arm around Allie’s waist and walk her in the direction of the bar’s exit.

As soon aswe’re through the door, Allie glues herself to my front, wrapping her arm around my neck and latching her mouth to my throat.

My bruised throat from Blaise strangling me.

I close my eyes and try to enjoy it, to like the way her tongue runs across my skin or the rushed way she unbuckles my belt.

I usually stop her and tell her I’m not ready, but after last night, and the way Blaise made me feel, I have to shadow it all with something else.

Weak.

I was weak. Always weak. The weak piece of shit who⁠—

“Come on,” Allie whispers, grabbing my hand and leading me to the bedroom, to the bed we share with Blaise and her best friend. “Please don’t stop me.”

She slides the straps of her dress from her shoulders, the material dropping and pooling at her feet.

I’m looking at her, and my eyes are on the marks on her breasts that I didn’t create. Someone else was on her only a matter of days ago, and she hasn’t even tried to hide it from me.

My gaze drops to the bruise on her hip, and she follows my line of sight. “Oh...” She hesitates and covers the blue-tinted skin with her hand. “Please don’t judge me.”

“Did he bend you over his desk again?”

The last time she had those marks, her professor made them. She got drunk and went into detail of how he worshipped her body while bending her over his desk, fucking her from behind while she imagined it was me.

Her bottom lip wobbles. “Yes,” she says quietly. “I won’t do it⁠—”

“Stop lying,” I snap, interrupting her. “You will do it again. I honestly think this is the eighth, maybe ninth time. Why are you with me? Give me a good reason, and I’ll forgive you.”

“I love you.”

“Not good enough. Your actions speak louder than words, Allie. Why, after two years of you fucking around behind my back, should I stay in this relationship? You make me look…”

Weak. Blaise’s voice is in my head, and I want to crack my own skull to pull him out.

She remains silent, tears building behind her eyes.

I step forward, anger growing the more I think about the shit she does and how it makes me look.

Weak.

I look weak.

“I don’t love you anymore. I don’t look at you and see a future, or think about ripping your clothes off and burying my cock inside you. The first time you cheated, I wanted to kill the guy. I wanted to kill you. But instead, I forgave you and let you do it to me again and again and again.”

I walk toward Allie until her back hits the wall, caging her in. “I don’t care about you. I don’t miss you when you’re not around. I don’t grab my phone to check if you’ve called. You broke me the first time you opened your legs for someone else when you belonged to me, and I’m not fixable, Allie.”

She tries to grab my face, but I snatch her wrists and pin them above her head, holding her against the wall. The movement lines our bodies up, her bare tits against my chest.

My dick doesn’t care.

“I want you to go home. My mom will drive you to the airport tomorrow. Go to my room and pack everything you have there, and I swear to fucking god, Allie, you better not be there when I get home.”

“No,” she croaks. “Don’t. Please, Cole. Don’t do this. I’ll… I’ll do better! I can—” She frees her hands from my grip and lowers to her knees. “Let me make you feel good. Give me a chance to make you fall back in love with me.”

Breathing heavily through my nose, I grit my teeth as she hurriedly unbuttons my pants and yanks my soft, disinterested cock out and wraps her fingers around it.

Not a single twitch as I try to pull back, but she digs her nails into my thighs and forces her mouth on me. The snatch I have on her hair makes her cry out around my flaccid dick, and pauses, looking up at me through her lashes. “Please,” she mumbles around the soft muscle.

She’s sucking, trying to swallow me, but nothing happens. My body doesn’t even betray me the way it has in the past.

I sneer, pulling away from her so my cock is free of her mouth. “Give up, Allie. We’re done.” I toss the short dress at her. “We’re just going to drag on the inevitable. If you keep running back to your professor, then why don’t you just be with him?”

She sniffles as she slides the dress back on. I sit against the dresser, crossing my ankles while I refasten my pants.

“He’s married,” she says, hugging herself. “I only went to him because he gave me attention and was helping me with coursework. I never had any intentions of becoming physical with him.”

I nod a few times. “Which professor is it?”

The door opens, and she pauses her reply as Blaise walks in, his hand securely around Mia’s. “I don’t think your girl is supposed to cry after you fuck her,” Blaise says to me, tipping his head, drunk as fuck. “Our wonderful parents decided to rent a second cabin so they can have privacy. I’m not sleeping in their bed.”

Mia rushes to Allie. “What’s wrong?”

She breaks down into a string of forced sobs. Huffing, I run my hand through my hair while Mia comforts her, and Blaise follows me out of the room as I go to the kitchen.

“What did you do?”

I turn around, nearly causing him to crash into me. “Stop talking to me. Stop doing all this fucking shit.” Grabbing his jaw, I seethe. “And don’t you ever do that to me again.”

“Do what?” He smirks. “Make you feel good?”

My fist is flying before I can stop it, my knuckles smashing into his cheek so hard, my wrist aches and Blaise hits the ground.

For once, he doesn’t fight me back. He’s sitting on the ground at my feet, scowling up at me, his cheek red and slowly swelling.

Chest tight, my heart races, and I want to kick him in the face, to grab his hair and drive my knee into his nose and tell him never to come near me again, to stop ruining my fucking life.

“I’m not weak,” I say through gritted teeth. My nostrils flare at his silence, the building rage behind his eyes. “And put a leash on Mia.”

He frowns at my change in subject, getting to his feet. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Just to be a dick, because he’s pushed far too many buttons, I say, “She’s randomly started approaching me as if we have something. I can assure you that I’ve never laid a fucking finger on your girl, but if she comes looking for my cock once more, I’ll give it to her.”