Tryst Six Venom (Tryst Six, #1)

by Penelope Douglas

“You need to learn that rocking the boat puts everyone on board in danger.” But that’s what boats are built for.

My heart beats faster, and in a moment, her eyes on my back warm my skin. Everyone . . . I look up, meeting Olivia Jaeger’s eyes as she leans against the archway leading into the dressing room, staring at me. And all of a sudden, my skin is too hot.

She loses the bags and comes around my front, facing me. I gaze down at my classmate, my teammate, and the only thing I ever look forward to anymore.

The Jaegers were born with grease under their nails, so better to be safe than sorry.

Tryst Six, they’re called. There are six siblings, and I can only assume the Tryst part comes from their mother, Trysta. They even have an adorable little logo. Insert eye roll.

“Because ladies in your world don’t talk about those things.” A smile curls the corner of her mouth as she inches in, whispering, “You just go home in tears and do things with a pulsating showerhead that God didn’t intend for sweet, little southern girls to do, right?”

God, I hate her.

Liv Jaeger has been a bloody nuisance since the day I met her, but sometimes I’m not even sure what bugs me so much about her. She stays in her lane, doesn’t she? But I love pushing her. I love it like nothing else.

But my thoughts still linger on her. What would Olivia Jaeger say if she saw me now? Maybe it would be the one time she couldn’t say anything. Sometimes I feel like I want her to know me. Sometimes I don’t want her to know anything but me. And other times, I’m glad she doesn’t have a clue.

We’re not done. We’re never done.

This could be it. The Jaeger family creed. The Tryst Six warning, however you want to look at it. Our parents’ passing came as so great a shock that we make it a point to remind ourselves not to fight with each other now. Not to waste time. Not to leave anything unsaid. This could be it. The last time we see each other.

I’m pretty sure she wants my phone number. The idea might be worth entertaining. She’s pretty, and maybe I’m attracted to her. I study her face, taking a moment. Yeah. I’m attracted.

I can’t help it. I like crazy. She can be fire or ice, I don’t care, I just need her to be one of them. And even better if it’s both.

Maybe I want to see if she has anything left up her sleeves. I dare her. I really do dare her.

“You’re good,”

“Better than you.” He grins, sliding his hands in his pockets. “I’m white, rich, and male. I’ll succeed no matter what.” “You’re male,” I say. “You’ll succeed no matter what.”

A body smaller and softer than Callum’s and lips I can feel between my teeth, because sometimes I want to bite her until she bleeds. God, she pisses me off.

“I’m a terrible father.” I laugh, holding up my cigarette. “Years down the road, I’ll cringe when I think of the debutante ball, and I probably won’t even remember my friends’ names,” I tell him, “but I’ll smile when I remember sneaking cigarettes with my dad.”

What’s the point? You work for years—educating yourself, building, planning, working, loving—and leukemia sweeps through and ravages your ten-year-old son to death.

Sometimes I get lost, looking at her. The shape of her nose that I’m kind of jealous of. How soft the lobe of her ear looks. The way she chews the corner of her mouth sometimes.

Seeing Clay watch me walk away from her.

The knot in my stomach is there, as it always is when I anticipate bullshit from her, but so is the skip in my heartbeat when I look at her.

In four seasons, she’s never known a win without me.

“I love how you move your ass for me.”

“Come on, baby. Do it.”

“How desperate for attention you are,” I spit out. “How shallow and small. I think you like engaging me. You like spending any time you can with me, don’t you?”

“Come on.” I hover over her, gazing down. “Hit me. Then I can hit you back and numb you like you want me to. Bullies are always in so much more pain than they inflict.”

“Scared I’ll like the position we’re in and make a move?” I tease. “Or are you scared you want me to make a move?”

“Come on, it’s just like being with a man, Clay,” I mock, unable to hide my enjoyment as I lower my voice to a whisper. “You just open your legs.”

“You make me want to puke,” she says quietly. “Dirty dyke.”

“Everyone likes it dirty, Clay. Everyone likes it, period.”

“Olivia Jaeger has a key to earn her A,” she recites as she types. “To Martelle’s apartment, so Teach can tongue her cunt all day . . .”

“Something hot about being used for something that feels so good?”

“You should thank me,” she whispers. “Surviving me will give you all the tools you need when you leave me.”

“Trysta, right? Trysta Jaeger and her six kids that she left when she hung herself in her fucking bedroom.”

Trysta Jaeger and her six kids that she left when she hung herself in her fucking bedroom.”

but . . . I don’t see my underwear. Where the hell are my underwear? I swing around left and again right, lifting up my wet clothes, but I don’t see them anywhere. My shoulders slump. She took them. What is she going to do with them? Goddammit.

I don’t see my underwear. Where the hell are my underwear?

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be Clay.

Why did I do that to her? What does she matter anyway? But even now, I still feel it. She’s bigger than me. She glows, and I don’t, and it’s not like I even want to push her down and make her shrink. It’s like . . . It’s like being in her orbit, I can feel the shine, too. I feel bigger with her close.

I just can’t get over the state of you. My eyes burn, thinking of all the insane shit I wrote all over her today. How I violated her. She’s not ugly. I hated that I couldn’t find anything wrong with her, and I shouldn’t have touched her. It hurt her. I touched her skin, and she never said it was okay.

Leaning my head on my hand, I fist the underwear again and again, my gaze falling into a void in my head where I only see her. In here with me. Quiet with me. Close with me. Her head between my thighs.

The bitch needs to shut up. I told her it was fine. I mean, it’s not. Liv’s going to pay for this, and I don’t need help punishing her. She’s my responsibility.

gutted. I can come with him. Now I know how. But God . . . What the hell is going on in my head?

I matter, you brat. You don’t. You can’t just run from me. You’ll leave here, but you’ll do it knowing you never survived me. Not really. We still have months, Jaeger. The fun is just beginning.

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” she tells me. I pause, the spell starting to break. “Don’t say that.” I tip her chin down and force her eyes to me. “Say you hate me. Tell me to stop.”

“Say it.” I grab the back of her neck, squeezing my eyes shut and rubbing her through her panties. “Stop,” she gasps. “I hate you, you fucking trash. I hate you.”

“Yeah?” I lick her mouth. “But you’re so wet. You don’t want this?”

And all the while I’m trembling as she grabs for me and holds me close and wants me in our secret place where no one can see us, because I want it to be real, too. I want Clay Collins in this fucking car and to love me so much she can’t stand it. Just so I won’t be alone anymore. That’s how pathetic I am. Fantasizing over a straight girl who believes I deserve nothing good in this world, because I think hate-fucking her would make me feel powerful. Because I don’t love her and I don’t like her, but I feel something about her, and whatever it is, it’s strong, and I need it. I want to throw her down and put my teeth on her and feel hers on me, but at the end, make her come and kiss her mouth and let her finally know that there was one nice memory of me. Oh, yeah. There was one.

My venom wasn’t like hers, so I never thought it was deadly. I’d given Clay too much power the last four years. I smile in the dark. I’m poison. I can be poison, too.