Nightfall (Devil's Night, #4)

by Penelope Douglas

I chewed the corner of my mouth to hide the tremble. What did I care? What did it matter that I’d been humiliated again? What did it matter that he saw that in the gym? The tears welled. He saw me. He saw that happen to me. He saw what the whole world thought of me, and now he… Now he… A hand slipped under mine, warm and smooth, and I snapped my head left, seeing Will in the seat next to me.

He curled his fingers, gripping me, and…and it took a moment to get a hold of myself. Finally, I forced a scowl and yanked my hand away. Or tried to. He wouldn’t let go. Or look at me. He just tossed his black hoodie over our hands and chatted to the guy in the next seat like I wasn’t here.

Will rubbed his thumb across my finger, and my stomach flipped, the gesture comforting.

My phone beeped, and I turned over my right hand, unlocking the screen with my thumb. The phone lit up my place by the window, rain pummeling the bus as we drove through the dark night. “Let me take you home,” it read. I clicked my music off, glancing over and seeing his phone in his hand, too—the same text visible. “No,” I typed back.

message. “Take her home. She’ll drool all over your dumb haircut and extensive knowledge of micro-brews and penis jokes.” I mean, he was a jock. I felt him shake with a laugh next to me. He typed, letters flashing on his screen. “I take you home, or I take you in my lap right here. Decide.”

“When the bus stops, get in my fucking truck.” I breathed out a bitter laugh. Aw, someone’s lost his temper. “Why?” I asked. And the next thing I know, the bus stopped, he yanked the earbuds out of my ears, and I sucked in a breath as he leaned into my face. “Because you’re mine,” he growled in a whisper. And all at once, the Horsemen rose from their seats, grabbed their bags, and charged down the aisle, leaving the bus first. My heart hammered. What the— Seriously.

I’m not yours, Will Grayson. And I’ll walk, thanks.

The creepy-stalker-weirdo would follow me in that damn truck. Right up to my front door.

But just then, the back door opened again, and I shot a glance over my shoulder, watching Elle quickly exit the truck again and close the door. “What are you…?” She walked past my window, swinging around and moving backward as she winked at me. “Have a safe ride!” she sing-songed, doing a taunting little wave. What the…? I stopped breathing as realization dawned. This was a trick. Dammit.

I pulled my seatbelt on, glaring over at Will as a smile curled his lips and he started the engine.

The goosebumps on my legs, because I felt kind of pretty in the skirt now. Did he like it?

walked in, and no one could take their eyes off her. She was so nervous, knowing she didn’t belong there.” He paused, turning his head and holding my eyes. “Feeling like a mouse in a snake pit. She kept holding her stomach like she was going to throw up or something. But she was pretty. So pretty. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.”

‘We want what we want.’”

“We want what we want,” he whispered. I dropped my eyes to my lap, fisting my hands. And then his voice came again, barely audible, “Come here,” he said.

“Come here,” he said again. I absently shook my head. “Why?” “Because I’m your man.”

If I let this happen—let him love me and protect me and all that shit he spewed—I’d just be trading one abuse for another. He’d use me, dump me, and I’d be worse off for it. I’d be shattered.

“Why are you afraid of me?” he barked, backing me up. “Why did you tell me that story?” I retorted. “Why do you think?” “To prove again what I already know?” I yelled. “That Thunder Bay boys always get away with it.” I stopped, and so did he. “You think Edward McClanahan got away with anything?” he fired back. I didn’t give a shit about Edward McClanahan! I just… I just wanted… I just wanted to go home! “I told you, because I like this place,” he finally answered. “I wanted you here with me, because…” He searched for words, his hand shooting to his hair and gripping it. “Because we want what we want, Em! Jesus!”

“Speak for yourself,” he growled. “I think you’re the one ashamed of me. That you want me. That you want this.”

“I would never stop touching you,” he said, his voice almost tired. “And I would touch only you.” He turned and looked at me, and he was so beautiful I wanted to believe him.

Speeding back to the Cove, I turned into the parking lot again and spotted him kicked back on a parking stump, hood up and ankles crossed. I pulled up next to him, rolling down the window. He peered up at me, batting his eyelashes against the rain. “I really don’t like you,” I said nice and loud so we were clear. He smiled and pushed himself up, coming up to the truck and climbing up on the step, peering down at me. “I like that you don’t like me,” he taunted.

“Can I pick you up for school Monday morning?” he asked, turning onto my street. I unfastened my seatbelt. “No.” “I just asked to be nice,” he said in a stern tone. “I’m picking you up. I don’t like you walking.”

“Please…” I shook my head, ready to plead. “Please don’t.” We approached my house, and I grabbed my bag and flute off the floor. “Stop here,” I told him. “I’m not afraid of your brother, Em.” “Please just drop me here,” I bit out. “Stop the truck, Will. Please.” “Okay.” He quickly pulled over to the curb, sliding behind Mrs. Costa’s Buick.

I stepped inside and heard Will’s truck finally pull off, breezing past my house. I closed and locked the door, my lips twitching with a smile. He actually waited until I was inside to leave.

I wished I was still in Will’s truck.

I tried to think of my gazebo. If Will helped me build it. How nice that might be someday. Will and the gazebo… Will and the gazebo… The breeze on my face was warm, and the leaves in the trees smelled like summer.

wanted to see everything. I wanted to touch him. He had shaved, and every muscle on his body had doubled in size since the last time I’d seen him, too. I dropped my eyes and froze, staring at the other hard muscle standing damn-near upright, long and thick between his legs.

I tried to picture him as he described himself, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine him docile. “Until one night, buried in my books, I saw her,” Aydin continued. I listened, but I turned my gaze back on Will as Aydin spoke in my ear.

Everything warmed, and I envied how he described her. Whoever she was. What would Will say about me? “It wasn’t her job,” Aydin said, “but it was her calling.”

He’d wanted to make me happy once.

“I’d never wanted anything more in my whole life,” Aydin went on, “and I was studying to be a surgeon who would’ve gladly cut off his own hands to have her.”

But one thing was pretty clear. She was the reason he was here. Much like Will could saddle me with that honor, possibly, as well.

“I just wonder…” Aydin said. “If he ever decided to run from here, would he care to take you?” He turned and walked away, leaving me there and feeling more alone than I ever had in my life. Will would leave me, and he would be right to.

I’d left him once. I’d let him be arrested and sent to prison, and in his head, I hadn’t cared at all. Maybe I deserved the same.

“I’m sorry,” I cried. I was so sorry for all of his pain. But when I thought he was going to throw me back into the pool, he brought me in instead, wrapping an arm around me and pressing his forehead to mine.

“Will…” I started. But he lifted my thighs up around his waist and backed into the shower again, slamming me into the wall as he took my bottom lip between his teeth. I opened my mouth to argue, but the heat of his breath made my whole body shiver, and I sucked in a breath, tightening my thighs around him. He ripped open my shirt, and a whimper escaped me as he pressed his chest into my bare breasts and thrust up into me, grinding hard. I dug my nails in, but when he came in for my mouth, I turned away.

“You were a hot little piece of meat, and I know you liked it.” He let my neck go and grabbed my breast instead, plumping it up and out for him as he dipped down and covered my nipple with his mouth.

“We should’ve just kept it this simple, huh?” he said. “But you didn’t want people to know the shit we did.”

“Why did you do it?” he asked. “Ashamed of what you liked me to do? There was still so much more to come, but you cut us short. We didn’t even do half of everything I had planned for you.”

I barely even registered him peeling my bottoms down my legs and taking my panties. What? “And now that you’re here,” he said, grabbing the back of my hair. I gasped as he brought me in nose to nose again, slipping his hand between my legs and caressing my pussy. “We have all the time in the world.” Then…he turned and left, his threat echoing through my ears as it took a moment to realize what had just happened. I blinked, locking my knees under me as I quickly closed my shirt and covered myself. Dammit. Aydin was right. Will wasn’t an ally.

couldn’t. Something kept bugging me about Friday night. Dropping her off at her house, I could hear it in her voice when she demanded I stop a couple houses down, instead of right in front of her driveaway. It was fear. Almost like she was panicked.

“Same parties. Same girls,” Michael mumbled. “I’m fucking bored.” “I know.” Kai let out a sigh. “I’m feeling it, too. I need something to happen.” “Something to obsess over,” Michael added. And then Damon chimed in. “We should kill someone.”

Michael whipped his uniform blazer at Damon. “I was thinking I needed the season to start, you fucking psycho.” “Or maybe you need to fall for someone,” Kai told him, pulling his jacket out of his Jeep and slipping it on. “I’m ready to have my guts twisted into knots.”

After stopping at the lockers and dodging conversations the others got tangled in on the way down the hall, I finally dove into lit class with my book and binder, looking to see who she planted herself around, so I knew whose ass to move.

There was only one thing I was aware of as I sat there. She wasn’t here.

I didn’t give a shit. Where the hell was she?

I couldn’t sit in class right now. My head ached and heated up like a fuse, and I refused to look for her, because even though I told myself it would be just to make sure she was safe—make sure everything was okay—it was because I was pissed. She really went to any length to avoid me, didn’t she?

But then I heard someone’s voice. “That title makes no sense.” I turned my head over my shoulder, seeing a glimpse of brown hair through the bookcases.

“You weren’t in class,” I said. Her chest shook, and I thought I saw her lip tremble. But then she cleared her throat. “Wasn’t I?” she snipped. “Wow, you’re outstanding. Maybe for your next trick you can make fire and draw stories in the dirt about those funny holes in the sky that let the light in.” Huh? Holes in the sky? Oh, stars. Was she calling me a caveman? Little shit. I mean, I did do her literature assignment for her. Did she have any idea how hard it was to try to sound like an angry teenage girl with zero sense of humor?

outdated. The glowing olive skin of her beautiful legs, interrupted with the occasional bruise or scrape, which I actually kind of loved because she probably got them from constructing that gazebo and being amazing at something most of us could never do.

“What happened?” I asked. But she just shook her head. “Just leave me alone,” she whispered. “Please.” Please? God, she must be desperate if she was using manners. “We started a new book in class,” I told her. She remained quiet, chewing on her lip. “We had a choice,” I said. “The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Grapes of Wrath, or Mrs. Dalloway.” A little snarl peeked out, and I bit back my smile. “I chose for you.”