Untouchable (Untouchables, #1)

by Sam Mariano

Carter Mahoney is not for the faint of heart.

Most people don’t like to be challenged. Most people like to be comfortable.

I am the thing that happened in this high school, in this small town. I am the person who made people uncomfortable. I am the catalyst that shook everyone’s fake friendliness and brought out their ugly, and what did I do? I dared to speak up for myself. I dared call out someone they liked more than me for doing something wrong.

You don’t fuck with the football players in a football town. That’s the number one rule, above absolutely everything else. They are gods here, and me? I’m no one. Who am I to police the behavior of deities?

Personally, I would rather be able to sleep at night knowing the girls in town are safe from assholes forcing unwanted attention on them, but the most vocal people in this town seem to prefer winning football games.

In the whole town’s eyes, I’m the asshole for not wanting Jake Parsons to touch me. For making a big deal about him ignoring my rejection and doing it anyway.

You can’t touch me. You can try, if you want to. I’ll bury you if you do. I wouldn’t advise it, but hell, if your honor is so damned important to you, go ahead and take me on, princess. Let’s see who emerges the ultimate victor.”

Carter thinks he’s above the law. He has money, talent, popularity, and the carefully constructed façade of an all-American golden boy. He has it all, so he can do as he pleases. Case in point, I haven’t done a damn thing wrong, yet I’ve been targeted, bullied, and abused three times now—and that was for messing with Carter’s best wide receiver, not Carter himself.

I shouldn’t even wonder. I shouldn’t even care. I’m curious by nature, but whatever the reason, Carter is who he is, and that’s someone dangerous. Someone to be avoided at all costs. Whether he doesn’t have a conscience, or he can just ignore it more easily than most people, something makes him capable of hurting people. Capable of being amused by it.

rules don’t apply to him, and the damndest thing is—at least for now—he’s right. In this little town, football isn’t a sport, it’s a religion. Carter is the star quarterback, the handsome, shiny senior everyone expects to lead us to the state championships.

I’d like to think someday he’ll fall, but the ugly truth is, he probably won’t. He has a dirty, rotten soul, but enough money and privilege that it will never matter.

“Sometimes good things come from unexpected places.

Hurt people hurt people. Did someone hurt Carter Mahoney?

“You can feel special if you want to. I’d rather make you feel dirty. I’d rather see all your feelings in your eyes when you hear the cold bite of my voice telling you how to please me. I’d rather you half-naked, on your knees, waiting for permission to suck my cock like a good little whore.”

My judgment is cloudy because deep down I want to believe he’s not as bad as he proved he was that day, and when you want to see something so badly, sometimes you invent evidence to support that belief.

“You want to know something, Ellis? I’ve got bad news for you, so listen up. Sometimes people do bad shit to you, and they don’t get punished; they get away with it. Hell, sometimes they get rewarded for it. If all this shit with Jake didn’t show you that, if all this shit with me hasn’t shown you that, maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are.”

“We aren’t what is done to us,” I tell him. “People are going to hurt us, and it’s going to be hard, and sometimes we might never get closure. We might never understand why. But that’s the reason I asked. Maybe deserve isn’t the right word. People don’t get what they deserve, people just get what they get, and then they have to make the best of it.”

“I can make you do a lot of things, but I can’t make you trust me. That, you have to give me.”

“Magnificent, huh? I thought I was an ice princess.” “Sometimes,” he acknowledges, his lips moving to my earlobe. Pleasurable shivers dance across the back of my neck and down my spine as he nips that, too. “But sometimes you’re warm.” He kisses my neck. “Sometimes you’re sweet.” Another kiss, trailing closer to my face. “Sometimes you’re a real pain in the ass.” “How romantic,” I say dryly, meeting his gaze as he pulls back to look at me. His lips tug up in a faint smile. “You’re a lot of different things, just like me.”

pain doesn’t do much for me. It’s the struggle, I guess. I do like overpowering you. Mentally, physically—I just like taking you on. I don’t know why, exactly; I guess I’ve never felt so well-matched. Hell, I like doing it even when I know I’m not going to fuck you, just to see the fear in your eyes. That’s fucked up, isn’t it?”

“Some people aren’t good-hearted, Zoey. We might want them to be, we might offer our hand and try to pull them up, but you know what? It’s much easier for them to pull us down.

That’s the thing that determines your path. It’s not mistakes you might make, it’s not detours off the straight and narrow. It’s knowing when to say enough is enough, when to stop taking that crap, and when to turn back toward the light and away from whatever tempts you to stray from it.”

“People aren’t pure, princess,” he tells me, shaking his head as he hits his turn signal. “When are you ever gonna accept that?”

His brutal dismissal of unfaithful men brings a relieved smile to my face. “Oh, good. I assume you don’t consider yourself any of those things?” “Nah,” he says, shaking his head. “I want to manhandle you, not cheat on you.”

“I’m not complaining, I actually really like this about you, but I’ll label it a weakness because it makes you easy to take advantage of. You try too hard to see the good in people, which is weird as hell, because one of the things I like most about you is that you don’t seem to give a single fuck what anyone thinks of you. I’ve seen people bullied with far less venom than you have been fold under the scrutiny, but you sail through the halls like a queen, like we’re all beneath you, and our opinions legitimately don’t matter. People call you stuck-up, but you’re not stuck up. You’re too nice to be stuck up.

“My flaw is that I’m not selfish enough?” I ask, skeptically. “You’d be a hell of a lot safer from people who seek to hurt you if you were more selfish. You make yourself vulnerable. It’s not like you’re oblivious to the danger around you. You know you’re doing it, but you’re willing to; you’ll take that risk for someone else’s sake, to try to help them, even if they’ve never helped you.”

They’d say stuck up instead of secure, they’d call your bravery stupidity because they don’t have your guts. They’d put you down because they don’t like you, or they don’t like those things about you, but I do. They’re beneficial to me, because they’re the only reason you even talk to me, but… if pressed, that’s why I’d call them weaknesses.”

I’m someone you shouldn’t have let into your world. After our first interaction, you should’ve locked yourself away from me and barred all the doors, but instead you let me in to see what I’d do. You knew the danger I presented, but… I don’t know.

“That’s why you’re not afraid of me?” I shrug. “Sometimes I am afraid of you,” I offer, since we’re being honest. “I don’t know exactly what you’re capable of, what your limits are, if you even have any. You’re definitely a gamble. But as long as you don’t actually, physically kill me, I’ll survive you.

I’ll always rise, from everything. I’m unconquerable.” Shaking his head with a fond smile on his face, Carter reaches forward for a fry. “If I didn’t like you so much, I’d take that as a challenge.” Reaching for another fry, I flash him an answering smile. “Then let’s hope you keep liking me.”

People who do bad things but need to believe they’re still good—that’s a hypocrite. That’s not me. I don’t lie to myself like that. I don’t have to justify my actions in order to sleep at night. I don’t blame anyone else for the way I behave, or pretend I’m being fair when I’m not. I know I’m fucked up, I just don’t care.”

that’s just who Carter is. High risk, high reward. I can’t pick and choose the pieces and parts of him I like and leave the rest. He is who he is.

Our paths curve, and who we become isn’t always who we thought we would be.”

“I spend every day of my life with people who like the look of a mask I wear, Zoey. You’re the only person who likes what’s underneath better.”

You know when to fight and when to stand down. You’re perfect for me.” “Do you want me to fight tonight?” I inquire. Carter shakes his head. “Nah. I want to make love to you tonight.”

“Anything that isn’t safe can be scary,” he states. “I’ll never be the safe bet, Zoey.”

“I wasn’t born this way,” he assures me. “I used to be more normal, then I realized the world sucks, everyone in it sucks, and I needed to toughen up and look out for myself, because no one else is gonna look out for me. Can’t be a sociopath, because they’re born, not made. My brain wasn’t wired this way.”

I’ll always be aware of his capacity for damage. Maybe he’s feeding me lies, and they taste better than the truth, so I want to swallow them, even though it will undoubtedly mean trouble later.

“That’s why you’re my favorite sociopath,” I inform him. His arm tightens around me and he jokes, “I better be. I’m not afraid to take out the competition.”

you don’t have to oppose me. You can be my partner. All my perks are your perks. It’s not me vs. you, Zoey. We aren’t opponents. When I win, you win.”

In a world full of phony bullshit, you’re the only thing that’s real.

When most boys screw up, they send flowers. Carter sends chaos.

I love being the place he puts his darkness. I love being the keeper of the secret of who Carter really is. I love him, dammit. I didn’t entirely mean it when the words slipped out that night in a post-orgasmic bliss bubble, but God help me, I do. I love Carter Mahoney, and that means I am well and truly fucked.

Whatever cloth he’s cut from, it’s not a normal one, and that’s fine with me. I love his abnormality. I love him just the way he is.

“We don’t play it safe, Ellis. We don’t turn away from what we want because it might end up hurting a little if it goes sideways. We trust each other to be there to pick up the pieces if it does.