Page 44
His hand came down even harder on my ass. “Stop fighting.”
I let out a little noise. A shameful noise. Something that probably startled both of us equally. I quickly tried covering it with a coughing fit, but I heard the low chuckle that indicated it was pointless.
“It’s okay, princess. You’re allowed to like being spanked.”
I began fighting him in earnest, only he quickly let go of me, which resulted in me almost biting it on the broken asphalt.
Vaughn’s arms came around me to steady me, his laughter still clear as he murmured, “Easy, easy.”
I shrugged him off me, trying desperately to ignore the leftover feeling of his body against mine. “Fuck off! What the fuck is your problem? I need money. I want to place a bet.”
His smirk played in the light and shadows from the dirty security light mounted at the back corner of the building.
“You? Need money? Right.”
I poked a finger in the center of his chest before pulling my hand back to keep from touching him again. “Don’t pretend to know me, jackass. Because you don’t. You don’t know a damned thing about me.”
Vaughn crossed his arms in front of his broad chest, and I tried to ignore the way it made the fabric of his shirt stretch across his shoulders. “Then why don’t you tell me? Why does Senator McNeely’s precious baby boy need money when his father owns half the state and his grandpappy owns the other?”
His knowledge of my mother’s side of the family took me by surprise. “None of your fucking business.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Seems like it is. Seems like you coming here makes it my business.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to confess. To tell him I was broke because my father was a controlling ass. But I couldn’t do it.
It was way too humiliating.
The last thing I wanted to do was give Elliot Vaughn more currency over me than he already had.
“Never mind,” I said. “I’ll leave.”
His hand clasped around my elbow in a viselike grip. “Wait.”
My skin prickled with awareness. Of him. Of his strength. Of the fact that no one else was within fifty yards of us.
“I need to get back to campus,” I said stupidly without turning to look at him. “I already broke curfew.”
“I’ll drive you.”
The offer got my hackles up. “I don’t need your help.”
It was a blatant lie. The guys who’d driven me weren’t leaving until the fight was over at the very least. And what was I supposed to do? Wait out here until they came looking?
He stepped up beside me. “Ah. Scared of riding on a motorcycle, huh? Okay. You could have just said so.”
I whipped around, taking the bait like it was laced with melted chocolate and the best narcotics money could buy. “I’m not scared of riding on a fucking motorcycle.”
He shrugged and reached into his jeans pocket for a key. “It’s okay if you are. I’m sure your little friends will be out in an hour or so.”
I scoffed. “It’s not gonna take an hour for Wes Buchanan to get knocked out. The guy has the flu.”
It took a second, but then Vaughn’s eyes widened in surprise. “Fuck. Wait here. Don’t fucking move.”
He turned and jogged back around the building. I eyed his motorcycle and considered kicking it over just to piss him off. But I wasn’t a criminal. All I wanted to do was go back to the dorm and meditate myself into oblivion. The coaches expected us for breakfast at eight tomorrow, and I always completed a stretching session first thing on game days. In order to get eight solid hours of sleep, I was already pushing it.
I stood around like an idiot, waiting for him to come back and imagining myself riding bitch on the back of his bike.
Elliot Vaughn enjoyed humiliating me. That much was clear. I’d assumed it was because he wanted to get a rise out of me, so I’d spent the past month or more trying my best not to react.
